For more on Foldit see, Cooper et al.
For example,
the final author of the first Foldit paper was“Foldit players”(Cooper et al. 2010).
For example, the final author of the first Foldit paper was“Foldit players”(Cooper et al. 2010).
Foldit turns the process of protein folding into a game
that can be played by anyone.
Second, by some definitions of human computation(e.g., Ahn(2005)), Foldit should be considered a human computation project.
Second, by some definitions of human computation(e.g., Von Ahn(2005)), Foldit should be considered a human computation project.
Foldit's elegant design enables players with little
formal knowledge of biochemistry to compete with the best algorithms designed by experts.
According to the definition proposed in Ahn(2005) Foldit- which I described in the section on open calls-
could be considered a human computation project.
In fact, in a head-to-head competition between Foldit players and state-of-the-art algorithms,
the players created better solutions for 5 out of 10 proteins(Cooper et al. 2010).
However, I choose to categorize Foldit as an open call because it requires specialized skills
and it takes the best solution contributed, rather than using a split-apply-combine strategy.
In fact, in a head-to-head competition to
predict the structure of 10 specific proteins, Foldit players were able to beat state-of-the-art
protein folding algorithms five times(Cooper et al. 2010).