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BBC Lab UK AI simulator
(@BBC Lab UK_simulator)
Hub AI
BBC Lab UK AI simulator
(@BBC Lab UK_simulator)
BBC Lab UK
BBC Lab UK was a BBC website that allowed the public to take part in online experiments by completing tests and surveys. The website was active for four years until its data collection ceased in May 2013. Details of the experiments and projects have now been archived.
Lab UK was commissioned in 2008 by BBC Commissioner Lisa Sargood, inspired by other online 'citizen science' projects such as Galaxy Zoo, the BBC Climate Change Experiment and BugGuide. The intention was to enable leading academics to harness the BBC's audience, using mass public participation to explore scientific hypotheses with very large data sets. The results would be published in academic journals and made available to the public through the BBC website and television.
Lab UK was conceived by BBC executive producer Richard Cable, who also edited it from 2008 to 2011. A number of professional scientists were engaged to consult on the design and development of the website, as well as the design of individual experiments which the public would engage with.
Each web experiment was structured to give feedback on the activity of the participant, immediately after they had submitted their data. Collectively, the experiment data would be handed over securely to the scientist who had designed the experiment. The analysis of the experiment data would be conducted by the scientist's research team. Where possible, the BBC actively encouraged the publication of the results in peer-reviewed journals.
The first experiment was published in 2009 and the final experiment was launched in 2012. The website stopped collecting data in May 2013 after its migration to the Knowledge & Learning product. The website was formally archived in March 2016.
The BBC's iF&L department had published several online quizzes to accompany BBC science television programming. Scientists such as Dr. Val Curtis and Dr. Stian Reimers asked whether they might analyse the anonymous data generated by the completion of these online quizzes. In 'The Disgust Test' and 'Sex ID', specific hypotheses were tested in the online experiments. The results were published in specialist journals. BBC's Multiplatform commissioners decided to make a re-usable experiment publication platform that could save all data to a common database.
The Big Stress Test was Lab UK's beta launch candidate in May 2009. The experiment was designed by Professor Peter Kinderman from the University of Liverpool and Dr Sara Tai from the University of Manchester. The experiment was promoted via the BBC's mental health and wellbeing website 'Headroom'. This experiment received roughly 6,000 participants. The experiment was updated and re-launched in 2011.
A collaboration with the Medical Research Council, Cambridge University, King's College London, the Alzheimer's Society and the BBC One Television programme, Bang Goes The Theory - this longitudinal experiment, launched in September 2009, sought to discover whether brain training games made any improvement to IQ for a healthy, general population. The Lab UK website hosted a series of brain training games and the study was structured as a clinical randomised controlled trial. The study contained over 60,000 people for six weeks. The study designers, Dr Adrian Owen and Professor Clive Ballard analysed the data and concluded the games made no difference to a healthy adult population. The results were published in Nature and televised on a BBC One special.
BBC Lab UK
BBC Lab UK was a BBC website that allowed the public to take part in online experiments by completing tests and surveys. The website was active for four years until its data collection ceased in May 2013. Details of the experiments and projects have now been archived.
Lab UK was commissioned in 2008 by BBC Commissioner Lisa Sargood, inspired by other online 'citizen science' projects such as Galaxy Zoo, the BBC Climate Change Experiment and BugGuide. The intention was to enable leading academics to harness the BBC's audience, using mass public participation to explore scientific hypotheses with very large data sets. The results would be published in academic journals and made available to the public through the BBC website and television.
Lab UK was conceived by BBC executive producer Richard Cable, who also edited it from 2008 to 2011. A number of professional scientists were engaged to consult on the design and development of the website, as well as the design of individual experiments which the public would engage with.
Each web experiment was structured to give feedback on the activity of the participant, immediately after they had submitted their data. Collectively, the experiment data would be handed over securely to the scientist who had designed the experiment. The analysis of the experiment data would be conducted by the scientist's research team. Where possible, the BBC actively encouraged the publication of the results in peer-reviewed journals.
The first experiment was published in 2009 and the final experiment was launched in 2012. The website stopped collecting data in May 2013 after its migration to the Knowledge & Learning product. The website was formally archived in March 2016.
The BBC's iF&L department had published several online quizzes to accompany BBC science television programming. Scientists such as Dr. Val Curtis and Dr. Stian Reimers asked whether they might analyse the anonymous data generated by the completion of these online quizzes. In 'The Disgust Test' and 'Sex ID', specific hypotheses were tested in the online experiments. The results were published in specialist journals. BBC's Multiplatform commissioners decided to make a re-usable experiment publication platform that could save all data to a common database.
The Big Stress Test was Lab UK's beta launch candidate in May 2009. The experiment was designed by Professor Peter Kinderman from the University of Liverpool and Dr Sara Tai from the University of Manchester. The experiment was promoted via the BBC's mental health and wellbeing website 'Headroom'. This experiment received roughly 6,000 participants. The experiment was updated and re-launched in 2011.
A collaboration with the Medical Research Council, Cambridge University, King's College London, the Alzheimer's Society and the BBC One Television programme, Bang Goes The Theory - this longitudinal experiment, launched in September 2009, sought to discover whether brain training games made any improvement to IQ for a healthy, general population. The Lab UK website hosted a series of brain training games and the study was structured as a clinical randomised controlled trial. The study contained over 60,000 people for six weeks. The study designers, Dr Adrian Owen and Professor Clive Ballard analysed the data and concluded the games made no difference to a healthy adult population. The results were published in Nature and televised on a BBC One special.