HCI as a means to prosociality in the economy

HCI research often involves intervening in the economic lives of people, but researchers only rarely give explicit consideration to what actually constitutes prosociality in the economy. Much has been said previously regarding sustainability but this has largely focused on environmental rather than interpersonal relations. This paper provides an analysis of how prosocial HCI has been discussed and continues to be defined as a research field. Based on a corpus of published works, we describe a variety of genres of work relating to prosocial HCI. Key intellectual differences are explored, including the epistemological and ethical positions involved in designing for prosocial outcomes as well as how HCI researchers posit economic decision-making. Finally, emerging issues and opportunities for further debate and collaboration are discussed in turn

Not at Home on the Range: Peer Production and the Urban/Rural Divide

ABSTRACT Wikipedia articles about places, OpenStreetMap features, and other forms of peer-produced content have become critical sources of geographic knowledge for humans and intelligent technologies. In this paper, we explore the effectiveness of the peer production model across the rural/urban divide, a divide that has been shown to be an important factor in many online social systems. We find that in both Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap, peer-produced content about rural areas is of systematically lower quality, is less likely to have been produced by contributors who focus on the local area, and is more likely to have been generated by automated software agents (i.e. "bots"). We then codify the systemic challenges inherent to characterizing rural phenomena through peer production and discuss potential solutions

Not at Home on the Range: Peer Production and the Urban/Rural Divide

ABSTRACT Wikipedia articles about places, OpenStreetMap features, and other forms of peer-produced content have become critical sources of geographic knowledge for humans and intelligent technologies. In this paper, we explore the effectiveness of the peer production model across the rural/urban divide, a divide that has been shown to be an important factor in many online social systems. We find that in both Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap, peer-produced content about rural areas is of systematically lower quality, is less likely to have been produced by contributors who focus on the local area, and is more likely to have been generated by automated software agents (i.e. "bots"). We then codify the systemic challenges inherent to characterizing rural phenomena through peer production and discuss potential solutions

Crowdsourcing Scientific Work: A Comparative Study of Technologies, Processes, and Outcomes in Citizen Science

Citizen science projects involve the public with scientists in collaborative research. Information and communication technologies for citizen science can enable massive virtual collaborations based on voluntary contributions by diverse participants. As the popularity of citizen science increases, scientists need a more thorough understanding of how project design and implementation decisions affect scientific outcomes. Applying a comparative case study methodology, the study investigated project organizers\u27 perspectives and experiences in Mountain Watch, the Great Sunflower Project, and eBird, three observation-based ecological citizen science projects in different scientific domains. Five themes are highlighted in the findings: the influence of project design approaches that favor science versus lifestyle; project design and organizing implications of engaging communities of practice; relationships between physical environment, technologies, participant experiences, and data quality; the constraints and affordances of information and communication technologies; and the relationship of resources and sustainability to institutions and scale of participation. This research contributes an empirically-grounded theoretical model of citizen science projects, with comparative analysis that produced new insights into the design of technologies and processes to support public participation in the production of scientific knowledge