Advaith Siddharthan's profile document
Description for Advaith Siddharthan
Advaith Siddharthan
Advaith Siddharthan
Advaith
Siddharthan
Professor of Computer Science and Society
My research specialisation is in Computational Linguistics and Data Science, with a focus on communicating complex data and making information and data (particularly telemetric data) accessible through text analytics, summarisation, reformulation and natural language generation. I have a particular interest in Citizen Science, and in particular, technologies that break down the divide between professional scientists and lay public and facilitate the meaningful engagement of the public with science.
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The Open University account for Advaith Siddharthan
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Advaith Siddharthan's membership at KMi
Advaith Siddharthan's participation in X:Polli-Nation
X:Polli-Nation
X:Polli-Nation
2019-01-01
2020-10-31
X:Polli-Nation (pronounced crosspollination) is a biodiversity citizen science project embedded in primary schools
The X-Polli:Nation project aims to get our communities buzzing. This National Geographic project shares (or ‘cross-pollinates’) approaches and tools between members of the public, scientists, technologists and educators in order to support pollinators, people and the practice of citizen science. Primary school children develop and maintain pollinator friendly habitats within their grounds, and learn how to identify and record pollinator species that visit these patches, thus contributing data on species level animal-plant interactions to science. This data is used to inform which flowers to plant the following season.<br><br><b>Funder:</b> National Geographic
Advaith Siddharthan's participation in Planting for Pollinators
Planting for Pollinators
Planting for Pollinators
2017-01-01
2017-03-31
Generating recommendations for bumblebee-friendly gardening
Environmental concerns are often communicated to members of the public as series of complex threats that demand urgent action on multiple fronts. Here, we propose to use state-of-the-art digital technologies in online outreach aimed to encourage positive behaviour in the real world and through this engage members of the public with the key environmental issue of pollinator declines. We capitalise on people’s personal connection with their gardens and build further outreach capacity by linking up technologies piloted in a focussed online citizen science initiative (BeeWatch) with a wide hands-on UK nature outreach network (OPAL). Using photographic records of bumblebee species submitted by citizens, we offer tailored gardening advice aimed at providing flowering plants for a range of bumblebee species throughout the season (Funded by NERC).
Advaith Siddharthan's participation in Blogging Birds
Blogging Birds
Blogging Birds
Blogging birds is a new concept that allows you to find out more about the lives of Red Kites, one of the UK�s most stunning bird species. Unfortunately, mankind hasn�t always celebrated the red kite and from the 18th century right up into the late 20th century they were hunted and killed as they were viewed as a threat to farming and game-shooting interests. This led to red kites becoming extinct in England and Scotland, with less than 10 pairs remaining in Wales in the 1940s. However, since then red kites have been successfully reintroduced to 10 sites around the UK. Using cutting edge computing technology, red kites will tell you a story about their day to day lives � without any help from humans! Keep coming back and you�ll see new stories about every day and every week of our red kites' lives as they gradually make their come back into the Highlands of Scotland. (Funded by RCUK)
Advaith Siddharthan's participation in BeeWatch
BeeWatch
BeeWatch
BeeWatch is a citizen science project developed in collaboration with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BBCT) and the University of Aberdeen. Citizens submit photographs of bumbelbees, then have the opportunity to identify the species (and this is a hard task) using an online key. BeeWatch deploys a range of AI technologies, both for automating the provision of informative and motivating contextual feedback to recorders through Natural Language Generation, and for combining independent species identifications by different users using novel Bayesian methods for verifying records. BeeWatch builds on pedagogical research on the role of formative feedback in motivation and learning; in particular, about expectations of the learner from feedback and devices such as parallel empathy. (Funded by RCUK)
Advaith Siddharthan's participation in Human-Computer Collaborative Learning in Citizen Science
Human-Computer Collaborative Learning in Citizen Science
Human-Computer Collaborative Learning in Citizen Science
2019-11-01
2022-10-31
This project explores the potential for collaborative learning between humans and machines within the framework of environmental citizen science.
This project explores the potential for collaborative learning between humans and machines within the framework of environmental citizen science. The term `citizen science' encompasses public participation in science and scientific communication to the public. Although not new, citizen science has gained renewed attention because of the opportunities arising from citizens' access to digital technologies in terms of data collection and annotation. While the vast majority of citizen science projects are aimed at data gathering, we instead propose a transformational shift to a new citizen science in which the public and technology are regarded not just as sensors or data recorders, but as a collective and empowered human--artificial intelligence that can help each other in science learning.
We will focus on the task of species identification from images. Citizen science projects such as iSpot invite the public to submit photos of wildlife. These are identified to species level and verified before being contributed to science. We will explore artificial intelligence as a means to automatically identify species in images. While this can save human effort, we are concerned about impact this might have on nature lovers. The introduction of technology is often associated with concerns of de-skilling. For naturalists, the honing of species identification skills is a key motivator of the recording activity. Hence, designing technology that provides opportunities for learning for both citizens and machines is essential, as is co-creating the technology to ensure that it is not only user friendly but responds to their motivations. Our approach will involve citizens collaborating with AI to arrive at
a species identification. AI will narrow down the choices and inform the citizen about how to distinguish the options. The citizen in turn will through providing an identification help the machine in its learning. We will study this learning interplay with respect to collaborative species identification, but will also explore technologies that foster wider science learning, environmental consciousness and data literacy through better communication of complex citizen science data. For this we will develop technology for Natural Language Generation that can communicate complex data through language.
Our proposed work programme seeks to bring about quantifiable benefits to (a) science, e.g., through the production of new knowledge and through monitoring key scientific processes at challenging temporal-spatial scales; (b) diverse stakeholders including the citizens themselves, e.g., through meaningful science learning for sustainability in formal and informal education contexts; and (c) wider society, e.g., through better societal understanding of current sustainability issues, leading to individual and societal action in support of the environment. <br><br><b>Funder:</b> EPSRC
Advaith Siddharthan's participation in Cos4Cloud
Cos4Cloud
Cos4Cloud
2019-11-01
2023-05-31
Co-designed Citizen Observatories Services for the EOS-Cloud
COS4CLOUD (Co-designed citizen observatories for the EOS-Cloud) aims to design, prototyped and implemented services that address the Open Science challenges shared by Citizen observatories of biodiversity, based on the experience of platforms like: Artportalen, Natusfera, iSpot, as well as other environmental quality monitoring platforms like: FreshWater Watch, KdUINO, OdourCollect, iSpex and CanAir.io. The innovative services will be designed, prototyped and implemented for improving the data and information quality using deep machine learning, automatic video recognition, advanced mobile app interfaces, and other cutting-edge technologies, based on data models and data protocols validated by traditional science. The new services will provide mechanisms to ensure the visibility and recognition of data contributors and the tools to improve networking between various stakeholders. Novel innovative digital services will be developed through the integration of CS products, generated by different providers, following open standards to ensure their interoperability, and offered in agile, fit-for-purpose and sustainable site available through EOSC hub, including a discovery service, to both traditional and citizen scientists. The design of new services will be user oriented, engaging a wide range of stakeholders in society, government, industry, academia, agencies, and research to co-design service requirements. As a result, COS4CLOUD will integrate citizen science in the European Open Science Cloud, bringing Citizen Science (CS) projects as a service for the scientific community and society at large.
Advaith Siddharthan's participation in Citizen Science and Artificial Intelligence
Citizen Science and Artificial Intelligence
Citizen Science and Artificial Intelligence
2019-11-01
We set ourselves an ambitious programme of fostering Science Learning through innovative Artificial Intelligence developed for Citizen Science
We set ourselves an ambitious programme of fostering Science Learning (formal and informal) through innovative Artificial Intelligence developed for Citizen Science.
We bring AI research on Image Recognition, Data Analytics and Natural Language Generation and a decade's experience of Citizen Science practice to bear on research problems, primarily focused on challenging topical issues such as Biodiversity monitoring and Actionable citizen science.
The group spans the Knowledge Media Institute and the School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences.
Advaith Siddharthan's participation in DECIDE
DECIDE
DECIDE
2020-08-01
2022-07-31
DECIDE - Delivering Enhanced Biodiversity Information with Adaptive Citizen Science and Intelligent Digital Engagements
Biodiversity is under increasing pressure, with consequent impacts on the benefits people gain from nature. This means that it is vital to include biodiversity in our decision-making and for this we need high quality, fine-resolution, spatial biodiversity information. With this information we can better value nature, and this can be done formally through a process called 'natural capital' assessment, such as by government agencies or local economic partnerships. We also need this information to develop better plans for protecting nature, undertaking ecological restoration to develop resilient ecological networks, and make good decisions about infrastructure development (to achieve net biodiversity gain, as is the ambition in Defra's 25 Year Environment Plan). Much of our existing biodiversity information comes from volunteer-collected species records (a process often called 'citizen science'). However, in many cases, people record where and when they want - leading to large spatial unevenness in recording, both at a national scale and at a local scale. The people and organisations who need to use biodiversity information don't simply require more records: they require better information. This requires us to construct good biodiversity models generated from the available data, communicate these models well, and preferentially target effort to add records from times and places that optimally improve the model outputs. This project seeks to achieve all of this by addressing three important questions. Firstly, can we enhance existing biodiversity information through near real-time, fine resolution, species distribution models? Secondly, can we make biodiversity information more accessible and useful to end users through data flows and automated data communication? Thirdly, can we encourage adaptive sampling behaviour in recorders, by using intelligent digital engagements, so that they re-deploy a portion of their effort to optimally improve biodiversity models? Our team is expertly placed to address these questions because we are a multidisciplinary team (environmental, computer, social and data scientists), and we will use a service design approach that actively engages data users (from national to local levels) and biodiversity recorders alongside the research team. In this project we will produce fine-resolution distribution models for about 1000 insect species across the UK (in this study focusing on butterflies, moths and grasshoppers) using earth observation sensor data, and a data lab (an online analysis platform) to automatically update outputs as new data are available. It is important to communicate these results and their uncertainty so, in collaboration, with data end users we will develop interactive and automatically-generated visualisations and text to do this effectively. We will also develop ways of assessing when and where new data will be most valuable in improving the model outputs. This, when combined with constraints (such as land access or people's recording preferences) will be communicated to recorders as bespoke recommendations via a web app. This will be developed for recording butterflies and grasshoppers (a sunny day activity), and recording moths (supported by our provision of portable, low cost light traps). We will engage recorders through established recording projects across the UK, including with partners in London (many people, but relatively few biodiversity data) and North and East Yorkshire (fewer people, and a wide variety of land uses). Throughout this project our work flows will be implemented in an data lab, so they will be flexible for use with any species and indeed could be adapted for any environmental data. The outcome of this project will be a process for enhancing biodiversity information that can be incorporated into existing recording projects and data streams, so that the outputs will be accessible and useful, for the benefit of nature and people. <br><br><b>Funder:</b> NERC
Advaith Siddharthan's participation in SENSE
SENSE
SENSE
2021-01-08
Sensory Explorations of Nature in School Environments
Studies show that fewer than a quarter of British children regularly use their local patch of nature and many suffer from 'Nature Deficit Disorder', impacting physical and emotional health. Recently, analysis of the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on children has shown a critical link between low educational attainment and reduced access to outdoor spaces for children living in poverty. Crucially, unequal access to green space for children and communities aligns with a general pattern of nature degradation, with the 2019 State of Nature report concluding that the UK is among the world's most nature depleted countries, and unable to meet international commitments such as the Convention on Biological Diversity's Aichi Targets. We believe that jointly addressing iniquities with respect to children's access to science learning, nature and the outdoors is key for advancing the discourse around environmental sustainability.
Sensory input, including those of touch, smell and sound, are known to be important to early science learning. New haptic technologies based on variable friction allow users to feel textures on a touch screen. We propose developing such technologies to create a platform for sensory explorations of nature. We will bring together our interdisciplinary expertise across Computer Science, Education, Ecology and Science Communication to research touch and haptic interfaces for bridging the known divides with respect to children's access to nature and the outdoors and science learning. We emphasise school grounds as spaces that can be developed through wildlife-friendly gardening practices as equitable spaces for encounters with nature for all pupils, and develop a citizen science project to observe nature in such spaces. Our research then aims to augment observation outdoors through developing variable-friction haptic interfaces that allow you to feel texture when touching an image on the screen.
Our project will thus seek to augment observation outdoors through developing variable-friction haptic interfaces that allow you to feel texture when touching an image on the screen. The key aim is to enhance, rather than distract from or replace, experiences of and curiosity about nature. We expect the touch interfaces we develop to be useful for (a) drawing attention to nature, e.g. a child may have access to real trees but not be minded to touch them or question why they have different barks; (b) making the untouchable tactile, e.g. through touching images of a badger; (c) playing with scale, e.g. feeling images at microscopic (e.g. leaf veins) or macroscopic resolutions, or comparing textures of leaves over seasons; and (d) continuing explorations of nature even when indoors, to sustain interest. We will explore in depth in a multidisciplinary manner the scientific and philosophical issues that stem from tactile but digital human-computer interactions around nature. For example, whether the inclusion of sensory input help pupils in distinguishing species (e.g. plant species through the textures of tree bark or leaves), whether digital tactile experiences generate emotions and feelings that are qualitatively or quantitatively different from just looking at the image, and whether they can help reconnect pupils with nature and encourage tactile explorations outdoors.
We seek to amplify the capacity of school pupils, from diverse backgrounds, to influence and participate in scientific inquiry and conservation action, by engaging in a "slowed down" multifaceted scientific, artistic and sensory observation of nature biodiversity within their school grounds. In the process they will learn about the circular economy and explore ideas from permaculture for redesigning their school grounds to support wildlife and also provide themselves with a richer sensory experience. We will develop a first of its kind online museum of citizen science for pupils to publish and share their biodiversity stories from school grounds.
See the UKRI press release at <a href="https://www.ukri.org/news/haptic-tech-turns-phones-into-multi-sensory-nature-learning-tools/">https://www.ukri.org/news/haptic-tech-turns-phones-into-multi-sensory-nature-learning-tools/</a>.