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Case studies in science philanthropy network-building
Published in Evan S. Michelson, Philanthropy and the Future of Science and Technology, 2020
Because of its open availability, many subsequent astronomical surveys have relied on SDSS data, and the SDSS data platform has served as a model for other large-scale astronomical surveys. One analysis of SDSS’s impact on the field noted that it “has proven beneficial to nearly every subfield of astronomy” (Pasquetto, Sands, Darch, & Borgman, 2016, p. 1587). The software originally developed for broadly sharing SDSS data, known as the SkyServer, has been generalized for use and subsequently renamed SciServer to indicate its application in many different scientific domains beyond astronomy, including soil ecology, oceanography, genomics, materials science, fluid dynamics, and other areas of cosmology (SciServer, n.d.). These open data sharing practices also led SDSS to become one of the first large scale research projects to facilitate and promote citizen science, allowing members of the public to meaningfully contribute to the research effort by helping to categorize the shapes of different galaxies (Borgman, Sands, Darch, & Golshan, 2016). This project, known as Galaxy Zoo, began in 2007 and has continued for over a decade with multiple rounds of citizen science research activities. It now has “the largest number of publications based on citizen scientists input,” and it too spawned a more generalized follow-on effort in other areas of science, a project called Zooniverse, that include targeted citizen science efforts in areas as diverse as biology, ecology, animal science, atmospheric science, social science, and other areas of physics as well (Zooniverse, n.d.).
Toward a Synergistic Relationship between Psychology and Technology
Published in Michael D. Coovert, Lori Foster Thompson, The Psychology of Workplace Technology, 2013
Michael D. Coovert, Lori Foster Thompson
Crowdsourcing provides a means of outsourcing jobs or tasks, not to employees of other companies, but often to the undefined public. Common examples include individuals reporting news stories, uploading photos and videos, and describing the weather and its impact. “Galaxy Zoo” is a specific application of crowdsourcing whereby members of the public voluntarily classify images of galaxies, captured using telescopes, into categories. They report their classifications back to astronomers to help them study how galaxies form and relate to one another (Baker, 2007). Not all such work is performed by uncom pensated volunteers. Amazon's “Mechanical Turk” system offers a platform for paying people to complete tasks, such as filling out surveys for social scientists seeking research participants. Apps for smartphones also allow members of the public to earn money through their camera- and internet-enabled mobile devices by completing small jobs and tasks. For example, smartphone users can be paid to take and submit photos of menus at designated restaurants; the photos are later used by organizations offering services that help people order food online (Boehret, 2012).
Creating Knowledge in Online Interactions
Published in Anne-Laure Fayard, Anca Metiu, The Power of Writing in Organizations, 2012
Moreover, to rise to the innovation challenge posed by competitive economies, organizations are increasingly relying on distributed teams in order to tap into various pools of expertise and build upon contextual knowledge. Consequently, a lot of their interactions are taking place via writing—e-mails, written documents exchanged or posted on platforms, blogs, and so forth. Furthermore, companies, inspired by open source development, have in the last decade started to “ask” the crowd to provide solutions to their innovation problems through innovation-oriented crowdsourcing platforms, such as InnoCentive.com and TopCoder. In the science domain, a similar trend toward collaboration among people distributed around the world has emerged with citizen science efforts where volunteers, oftentimes with no specific scientific training, accomplish or manage research-related tasks such as observations or measurements. For example, in one of the most successful citizen science project, Galaxy Zoo, first launched in 2007 by astronomers and astrophysicists from the United Kingdom, participants are asked to help classify galaxies by studying images of them online and answering a standard set of questions about their features. Another famous example of distributed knowledge development through writing is Wikipedia, a free, Web-based, encyclopedia founded in 2001 and whose content is written collaboratively by volunteers, who can add and edit entries. It has about 10,000 regular contributors, consists of over 20 million articles, and is written in as many as 280 languages.1 In open innovation platforms as in electronic mailing lists, such as Listserv, or in online forums, the main mode of communication is also writing.
Science Gamers, Citizen Scientists, and Dabblers: Characterizing Player Engagement in Two Citizen Science Games
Published in International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 2023
Jian Tang, Nathan R. Prestopnik
Gameful systems integrate key structures, aesthetics, and characteristics of games (McGonigal, 2015), resulting in a gameful experience for users (Landers et al., 2019). As described by Landers et al. (2019), gameful systems can exist on a spectrum from “non-games” to “games,” though it is not always clear where specific gameful systems should be placed on such a continuum. While some gameful systems resemble commercially available entertainment games, others include a more limited selection of game elements. Opinions differ about whether systems with few game elements should nonetheless be considered games, or whether these are “non-games” as denoted by Landers et al. (2019). Ponti et al. (2018), looking at two well-known citizen science systems, Galaxy Zoo and FoldIt, showed how framing a system as either a game (FoldIt) or not a game (Galaxy Zoo) influenced participant reactions to various game elements such as point systems and leaderboards. FoldIt players noted concerns about the tension between play and science, with much debate over the scientific vs. gameplay value of high-scoring solutions in that game. Galaxy Zoo users, on the other hand, more frequently articulated that, “gaming is not compatible with scientific values,” (Ponti et al., 2018).
Exploring Volunteer Motivation, Identity and Meaning-Making in Digital Science-Based Research Volunteering
Published in International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 2022
Khushnood Z. Naqshbandi, Yun-Hee Jeon, Naseem Ahmadpour
Author 1 is responsible for leading the project. “I am an HCI researcher and this article forms a part of my Ph.D. research. My interest in research on volunteerism did not occur by chance, but was deliberately crafted based on my own history of volunteering in a few areas of interest, both in online and traditional face-to-face environments. I have contributed as a volunteer to several scientific projects on citizen science platforms, such as Zooniverse, Galaxy Zoo, and others based on my personal amateur interests in topics, such as astronomy, literature, amongst others. So, I naturally made an effort into getting involved in this project when the opportunity arose. Additionally, several circumstances in my personal life (lived experiences of oppression due to being raised in a politically disputed region, living as a non-Anglo immigrant in a Western nation) in addition to my work associated with several vulnerable groups of people (refugees and asylum seekers, people with spinal cord injuries and neurological conditions, the homeless, among others) have brought a strong awareness of how marginalization can make people invisible and how it routinely occurs through the design of policies, processes and objects around us. The core topic, the design of the study and the lens through which I analyzed the data in this article are inspired by my own stake in the aforementioned topics.”