Newsletters

Did you know you can send a newsletter to your volunteers once your project is launched as an official Zooniverse project? Just email the plain text copy to contact@zooniverse.org and we will edit and send it to your registered volunteers.

Everyone who has classified on your project and hasn't opted out of your newsletter updates will receive a copy.

It is good practice to send your newsletter text to us at least a week in advance. Although we do our best to accommodate urgent requests and timed newsletters to meet your wishes, it is not always possible. We usually send newsletters in the first half of the week.

Greetings
Words of appreciation
Updates about your project
Call to action (e.g. “help us classify…”, “visit this page…”, “read the new publication…”, “try the new workflow…”)
Relevant project link(s)
Signature
Invitation to connect, links to social media and external sites

Please note that we cannot include or attach images. If you want to share images, you can provide relevant links (for example, to the Results page).

Language and style

Write from the first person (“we”, “our team”, “I”). Unlike the Zooniverse newsletter announcing new project launches, this communication is directly from you - to the volunteers.

No need to be too formal. Feel free to share your updates in a casual and informal way. Just speak from the heart, keep it authentic, and let your personality shine.

The newsletter doesn’t have to be long - one to three paragraphs are usually enough.

We highly suggest writing in plain language: English at a 9-11 year old reading level is a good target. Avoid or carefully explain any scientific jargon. Remember that most of Zooniverse volunteers are non-specialist, may use English as their second (or third) language, may have special needs (for example, ADHD or low vision), may be socially disadvantaged, or are of a younger (middle school) or older (65+) age range. You may want to use a free online readability checker to determine the reading level of your text.

Send newsletters often

Newsletters are one of the key methods of engaging with your community. Updates let volunteers know that their hard work is appreciated and being used by your research team.

Newsletters will increase engagement and bring volunteers back to your project more than any other means of communication.

If you need help creating or sending a newsletter, email us at contact@zooniverse.org - we will be happy to help!

Examples

Below are excerpts from great project newsletters for your inspiration.

Purpose: Informing about a new publication

Hi everyone,

We have some exciting news: Planet Hunters TESS has discovered and published another exciting planet system!

The paper, which has been published here, outlines the discovery of the, to date, brightest known planetary system that contains a transiting habitable zone planet. In our case this planet is about 3 times the size of the Earth (we call this size of planets mini-Neptunes) and it takes the planet about 270 days to orbit around its host star. In addition to this habitable zone planet, there is an additional shorter period (non-transiting) planet on a 34 day orbit. But the fun doesn’t end there! Excitingly (at least I think so) we have found imaging data going all the way back to the year 1905, which show that there is also a second star!! This second star orbits around the primary star (and around the two planets) on a highlight elliptical 300-year orbit. You can find out more information about this exciting system (with some great illustrations showing what the system might look like) here.

I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who takes part in Planet Hunters TESS for making this discovery possible, including everyone who helped classify this target and who are now co-authors of this paper.

In other news, the latest sector of data is now available! Perhaps we’ll find more exciting and unique planet and stellar systems this month! See what you can find at www.planethunters.org.

Happy planet hunting!

Nora and the Planet Hunters TESS team

Purpose: Invitation to an online event for volunteers

Dear Backyard Worlds Enthusiasts,

Would you like to join astronomers on a Zoom call and learn a bit more about the Backyard Worlds projects (Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors, and Exoasteroids)? Our last call was so popular, we’re planning another one!

Join us Friday October 25, 4-5pm Eastern Time (US and Canada) to talk about Backyard Worlds. Everyone’s welcome!

Register in advance for this meeting: [Registration URL]

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Best, Dr. Marc Kuchner (for the Backyard Worlds team)

Purpose: Announcing new datasets

Dear volunteers,

Your incredible work on Science Scribbler: Synapse Safari continues to amaze us! Thanks to your dedication, we've made substantial progress since the project launch. You have contributed over 186,000 classifications, spending nearly 900 hours identifying mitochondria and synaptic vesicles in our datasets. That is a tremendous effort, and we would first like to say:

Thank you!

We have been working hard to process and summarise your classifications so far. While many of the analyses are still being refined, we're excited to share some early results! Check out some sneak peeks of our findings on our Results Update page.

New Datasets Released!

In our project, we have been looking at volume electron microscopy datasets taken at the CA1 area in the hippocampus. This area is crucial for forming and consolidating new memories. Our study compares both different regions of CA1 (proximal – closer to the centre, and distal – further away from the centre) and different ages (22-day-old juvenile and 100-day-old adult mice).

We're excited to announce the following new datasets:

Mito Spotter

Correct Synaptic Vesicles

With these new datasets, we're getting closer to having a complete picture across all brain regions and ages. Each additional classification helps finetune and validate our machine learning models and ensures our findings are robust. By completing these datasets, you'll help us piece together how neurons in the hippocampus develop and function. We look forward to sharing more discoveries made possible by your contributions!

Thank you again for all your hard work so far!

Twitter | YouTube | Science Scribbler  ~ The Science Scribbler team

Purpose: Announcing that the project is temporarily out of data

Hello Drones for Ducks volunteers!

First, thank you SO MUCH for all your help with Drones for Ducks over the past several years! This project has grown substantially since we first launched on Zooniverse in 2021. You have helped to create one of the largest datasets of drone imagery of birds that currently exists, and we have a number of exciting new directions that we have been pursuing with the data you have helped us collect. Please check out our Results page with some updates on what we've accomplished so far (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/rowan-aspire/drones-for-ducks/about/results).

One important new direction is that we are expanding beyond New Mexico, working with new partners on the Gulf Coast to monitor birds there. Right now, we are on temporary hiatus while we wait for the birds to come back to the Gulf Coast for the winter. We will survey new sites with new species and post new data for you in the spring. If you have any questions in the meantime, come to our Talk thread on this topic: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/rowan-aspire/drones-for-ducks/talk/4048/3441833

We will send out a newsletter update when we have new data in 2025. While you wait, if you enjoyed our project, consider helping out Iguanas from Above, a drone-based project in the Galapagos! https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/andreavarela89/iguanas-from-above

Take care and thanks again!

Cheers, Rowan Converse, Project manager

Purpose: Celebrating a finished project

Greetings from medieval London!

Well everyone, we did it! The last classification is in - Get to Know Medieval Londoners is officially complete!

Thank you to everyone who has helped with project development, spent countless hours classifying medieval property records, joined the Talk board discussions, and attended events. This project would not have been possible without you and all of your hard work and dedication over the past 2 years!

What started out as a small school project grew to a community of 2,356 volunteers who have made nearly 25,000 classifications. I hope you all have enjoyed the project as much as I have.

The completed data is now available online in a raw, unprocessed format for those who would like to conduct their own research with it. The end goal of this project is a substantial contribution of personal records to the Medieval Londoners Database, a process which will take several months (and lots of help) to complete.

For those interested in the data cleaning process, there is a new Talk board dedicated to this discussion. For those interested in other ways of participating now data collection is complete, see this discussion post. For those who would like to catch up on what the project was like, there is a recorded version of the December 2023 seminar at the Institute of Historical Research available here.

Stay tuned for more updates as the data processing and resource development progresses!

Thank you for all of your classifying!

The Get to Know Medieval Londoners Team