Using Citizen Science Gamification in Agriculture Collaborative Knowledge Production

RUC-APS is an international project run by 16 research institutions. The project's main goal is empowering agriculture production systems through innovative knowledge-based ICT solutions to deal with high risk and uncertain conditions. In this context, a Semantic Mediawiki is desired to support the various stakeholders in the agriculture value chain in the task of capturing and sharing agricultural best practices. Applying gamification to Wikis is one strategy to encourage the community to participate, and It could be achieved by attaching Metagame, a gamification layer system. However, It could be risky because the tunning of a gamification system in the production face of the wiki could be perceived by the users as a bug in the system. To avoid this situation, a simulation based on the real historical data of the Agriculture community in Wikipedia from 2001 to 2018 was performed. The simulation revealed that is not obvious to generate a system of awards on the type of actions carried out by the Wikipedia editors. The construction of knowledge is done in very small portions, and some of them can be confused with improvements or corrections instead of contributions. Indeed, It shows the importance of tuning the reward parameters, because that allows advancing in the Metagame rank evolution.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzad

Using Citizen Science Gamification in Agriculture Collaborative Knowledge Production

RUC-APS is an international project run by 16 research institutions. The project's main goal is empowering agriculture production systems through innovative knowledge-based ICT solutions to deal with high risk and uncertain conditions. In this context, a Semantic Mediawiki is desired to support the various stakeholders in the agriculture value chain in the task of capturing and sharing agricultural best practices. Applying gamification to Wikis is one strategy to encourage the community to participate, and It could be achieved by attaching Metagame, a gamification layer system. However, It could be risky because the tunning of a gamification system in the production face of the wiki could be perceived by the users as a bug in the system. To avoid this situation, a simulation based on the real historical data of the Agriculture community in Wikipedia from 2001 to 2018 was performed. The simulation revealed that is not obvious to generate a system of awards on the type of actions carried out by the Wikipedia editors. The construction of knowledge is done in very small portions, and some of them can be confused with improvements or corrections instead of contributions. Indeed, It shows the importance of tuning the reward parameters, because that allows advancing in the Metagame rank evolution

Towards a collaborative experience to generate knowledge: Use of gamification in robotics for Good Agricultural Practices

Currently gamification strategies are implemented in the most diverse fields. This paper discusses the design of gamification environment on a collaborative wiki on good agricultural practices. The aim of the project is to present a gamification design is complemented by a robotic interface, aimed at increasing customizing the experience from a cooperative community context. The robot interface also presents the possibility of containing a living organism, linked to the actions of the wiki.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzad

Towards a collaborative experience to generate knowledge: Use of gamification in robotics for Good Agricultural Practices

Currently gamification strategies are implemented in the most diverse fields. This paper discusses the design of gamification environment on a collaborative wiki on good agricultural practices. The aim of the project is to present a gamification design is complemented by a robotic interface, aimed at increasing customizing the experience from a cooperative community context. The robot interface also presents the possibility of containing a living organism, linked to the actions of the wiki.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzad

Towards a collaborative experience to generate knowledge: Use of gamification in robotics for Good Agricultural Practices

Currently gamification strategies are implemented in the most diverse fields. This paper discusses the design of gamification environment on a collaborative wiki on good agricultural practices. The aim of the project is to present a gamification design is complemented by a robotic interface, aimed at increasing customizing the experience from a cooperative community context. The robot interface also presents the possibility of containing a living organism, linked to the actions of the wiki.Laboratorio de Investigación y Formación en Informática Avanzad

‘Probing with the prototype’:using a prototype e-participation platform as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth engagement with the environment

This study describes how we used a prototype e-participation plat-form as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth motivation and engagement strategies. This is a novel way of considering digital cultural probes which can contribute to the better creation of e-participation platforms. This probe has been conducted as part of the research project STEP which aims at creating an e-participation platform to engage young European Citizens in environmental decision making. Our probe technique has given an insight into the environ-mental issues concerning young people across Europe as well as possible strat-egies for encouraging participation. How the e-participation platform can be utilised to support youth engagement through opportunities for social interac-tion and leadership is discussed. This study leads to a better understanding of how young people can co-operate with each other to provide collective intelli-gence and how this knowledge could contribute to effective e-participation of young people

Launching the Grand Challenges for Ocean Conservation

The ten most pressing Grand Challenges in Oceans Conservation were identified at the Oceans Big Think and described in a detailed working document:A Blue Revolution for Oceans: Reengineering Aquaculture for SustainabilityEnding and Recovering from Marine DebrisTransparency and Traceability from Sea to Shore:  Ending OverfishingProtecting Critical Ocean Habitats: New Tools for Marine ProtectionEngineering Ecological Resilience in Near Shore and Coastal AreasReducing the Ecological Footprint of Fishing through Smarter GearArresting the Alien Invasion: Combating Invasive SpeciesCombatting the Effects of Ocean AcidificationEnding Marine Wildlife TraffickingReviving Dead Zones: Combating Ocean Deoxygenation and Nutrient Runof

Gamification, citizen science, and civic technologies: In search of the common good

In this paper, we discuss the importance of gameplay as a valuable tool in citizen sensing initiatives aimed at enabling creative collaboration and civic engagement. We present a review of selected citizen science and civic technologies’ projects highlighting an emerging culture of massive collaborative initiatives that make use of crowdsourcing, enabling users to voluntarily contribute their time, effort and resources towards scientific research and civic issues. Moreover, we discuss how these initiatives could benefit from the inclusion of gameplay in their interaction processes. For that matter, we present a gamified citizen sensing project we are devising for users to enter and retrieve information on commercially available food products which contain ingredients associated with an increased risk of cancer and other diseases. Through gameplay, we expect to crowdsource an open database of potentially unhealthy food products, raising awareness among consumers about the risks of certain artificial additives. Finally, we argue that the use of gamification processes can engage voluntary participation in initiatives aimed at citizenship – including those which demand complex and repetitive tasks for the collection of data – and call for a more ethical, critical, and meaningful use of these new potential technologies, and for greater awareness of our new civic responsibilities.Keywords: interaction design, gamification, citizen sensing, mobile applications, artificial food additives

What are the prospects for citizen science in agriculture? Evidence from three continents on motivation and mobile telephone use of resource-poor farmers

As the sustainability of agricultural citizen science projects depends on volunteer farmers who contribute their time, energy and skills, understanding their motivation is important to attract and retain participants in citizen science projects. The objectives of this study were to assess 1) farmers’ motivations to participate as citizen scientists and 2) farmers’ mobile telephone usage. Building on motivational factors identified from previous citizen science studies, a questionnaire based methodology was developed which allowed the analysis of motivational factors and their relation to farmers’ characteristics. The questionnaire was applied in three communities of farmers, in countries from different continents, participating as citizen scientists. We used statistical tests to compare motivational factors within and among the three countries. In addition, the relations between motivational factors and farmers characteristics were assessed. Lastly, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to group farmers based on their motivations. Although there was an overlap between the types of motivations, for Indian farmers a collectivistic type of motivation (i.e., contribute to scientific research) was more important than egoistic and altruistic motivations. For Ethiopian and Honduran farmers an egoistic intrinsic type of motivation (i.e., interest in sharing information) was most important. While fun has appeared to be an important egoistic intrinsic factor to participate in other citizen science projects, the smallholder farmers involved in this research valued ‘passing free time’ the lowest. Two major groups of farmers were distinguished: one motivated by sharing information (egoistic intrinsic), helping (altruism) and contribute to scientific research (collectivistic) and one motivated by egoistic extrinsic factors (expectation, expert interaction and community interaction). Country and education level were the two most important farmers’ characteristics that explain around 20% of the variation in farmers motivations. For educated farmers, contributing to scientific research was a more important motivation to participate as citizen scientists compared to less educated farmers. We conclude that motivations to participate in citizen science are different for smallholders in agriculture compared to other sectors. Citizen science does have high potential, but easy to use mechanisms are needed. Moreover, gamification may increase the egoistic intrinsic motivation of farmers

The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion:Market Analysis, Future Prospects and Key Challenges in Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification

The effective use of digital games for empowerment and social inclusion (DGEI) of people and communities at risk of exclusion will be shaped by, and may influence the development of a range of sectors that supply products, services, technology and research. The principal industries that would appear to be implicated are the 'videogames' industry, and an emerging 'serious games' industry. The videogames industry is an ecosystem of developers, publishers and other service providers drawn from the interactive media, software and broader ICT industry that services the mainstream leisure market in games, The 'serious games' industry is a rather fragmented and growing network of firms, users, research and policy makers from a variety of sectors. This emerging industry is are trying to develop knowledge, products, services and a market for the use of digital games, and products inspired by digital games, for a range of non-leisure applications. This report provides a summary of the state of play of these industries, their trajectories and the challenges they face. It also analyses the contribution they could make to exploiting digital games for empowerment and social inclusion. Finally, it explores existing policy towards activities in these industries and markets, and draws conclusions as to the future policy relevance of engaging with them to support innovation and uptake of effective digital game-based approaches to empowerment and social inclusion.JRC.J.3-Information Societ