Facebook Game for Climate Research

The newly developed Climate Quiz belongs to the „Games with a Purpose" and should be applied to problems and questions that cannot be dealt with by automatic systems. In the game, members evaluate definitions concerning climate change. For correct answers the system allocates points. The members can also compare themselves against each other in league tables.

On the one hand, scientists hope to gain new insights into members` knowledge, and on the other hand raise awareness.

International
The official starting point for the project is today, Wednesday. The Climate Quiz is intended for an international audience and therefore in English. At the moment, it is unclear if a German version is to follow. Arno Scharl teaches at the Institute of New Media Technology and is heavily involved in the project. He explains to futurezone: "The game-like approach should motivate members to take part in the survey." In the long run, Scharl hopes to have about 10,000 members.

Climate Change Collaboratory
The Climate Quiz is a part of the Climate Change Collaboratory (Triple-C project), which provides people interested in the environment with free tools. The Modul University Vienna (MU), the University of Economics Vienna, the University of Graz, the political Think-Tank "Club of Rome" and the Centre for Climate and Global Change in Wegen are all participating.

Among the international partners of the Climate Change Collaboratory are NASA and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), as well as the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change of the London School of Economics.

Media Watch
Within the scope of this collaboration, a tool which evaluates English media coverage about climate change has been developed. As such, articles from 150 news sites, blogs, environmental organisations and companies are evaluated and prepared. The results are freely accessible online.

Sentiment Quiz
The Climate Quiz is already the second Facebook-project at the ModulUniversity. The Sentiment Quiz, put into practice during the presidential elections in the US in 2008, was analyzed with the help of Facebook to see if the respondents perceived certain definitions as positive or negative. The project was awarded the National Prize for Multimedia in the category "Social Media".