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

Implementing an Environmental Citizen Science Project: Strategies and Concerns from Educators’ Perspectives

Citizen science seems to have a natural alignment with environmental and science education, but incorporating citizen science projects into education practices is still a challenge for educators from different education contexts. Based on participant observation and interview data, this paper describes the strategies educators identified for implementing an environmental citizen science project in different education contexts (i.e., classroom teaching, aquarium exhibits, and summer camp) and discusses the practical concerns influencing independent implementation by educators. The results revealed different implementation strategies that are shaped by four categories of constraints: 1) organizational and institutional policies, 2) educators’ time and material resources, 3) learners’ needs and abilities, and 4) aspects of citizen science project design that constitute a higher barrier to entry for educators managing student contributions. We developed a simple two-dimensional model to demonstrate the types of adaptations that educators made to citizen science projects and discussed the potential role of persuasive technologies to address some of the gaps and better facilitate educator and learner participation

The Rise of Citizen Science in Health and Biomedical Research

Citizen science models of public participation in scientific research represent a growing area of opportunity for health and biomedical research, as well as new impetus for more collaborative forms of engagement in large-scale research. However, this also surfaces a variety of ethical issues that both fall outside of and build upon the standard human subjects concerns in bioethics. This article provides background on citizen science, examples of current projects in the field, and discussion of established and emerging ethical issues for citizen science in health and biomedical research

Validity Issues in the Use of Social Network Analysis with Digital Trace Data

There is an exciting natural match between social network analysis methods and the growth of data sources produced by social interactions via information technologies, from online communities to corporate information systems. Information Systems researchers have not been slow to embrace this combination of method and data. Such systems increasingly provide “digital trace data” that provide new research opportunities. Yet digital trace data are substantively different from the survey and interview data for which network analysis measures and interpretations were originally developed. This paper examines 10 validity issues associated with the combination of digital trace data and social network analysis methods, with examples from the IS literature, to provide recommendations for improving the validity of future research

eSocialScience for Free/Libre Open Source Software Researchers

This abstract presents a case study of the potential application of eScience tools and practices for the social science research community studying Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development practices. We first describe the practice of research on FLOSS to motivate the need for eScience. After outlining suitable public data sources, we describe our initial efforts to introduce eScience tools for FLOSS research, potential obstacles and how the use of such tools might affect the practice of research in this field

Measuring Potential User Interest and Active User Base in FLOSS Projects

This paper presents a novel method and algorithm to measure the size of an open source project\u27s user base and the level of potential user interest that it generates. Previously unavailable download data at a daily resolution confirms hypothesized patterns related to release cycles. In short, regular users rapidly download the software after a new release giving a way to measure the active user base. In contrast, potential new users download the application independently of the release cycle, and the daily download figures tend to plateau at this rate when a release has not been made for some time. An algorithm for estimating these measures from download time series is demonstrated and the measures are examined over time in two open source projects

Exploring Peer Prestige in Academic Hiring

Why do we care about prestige rankings? What does this preoccupation say about our implicit understanding of prestige as a function of image and identity? For an academic community in which identity matters, prestige rankings reveal an important dimension of identity in community context. In the case of existing rankings for the emergent iSchools, interdisciplinary growth has rendered the community context incomplete. Exploring indicators of prestige in hiring networks as related to the measures of prestige presented in peer rankings such as US News & World Report (USNWR) rankings provides a new perspective on hiring and identity in the iSchools. This research collected data on the educational pedigrees of 693 full-time faculty at iSchools and constructed a hiring network of institutional affiliations, with connections between the schools based on the institutions from which current iSchool faculty received their PhD degrees. The study quantitatively and qualitatively compares the iSchool hiring network structure to a similar hiring network in the more established academic discipline of Computer Science (CS), and uses regression on network prestige and centrality measures to explain the variance in USNWR ratings. The study projects inclusive prestige ratings for the full CS and iSchool communities, which reveal underlying similarities in the structure of the two networks. Analysis of additional hiring network features, such as faculty areas of study and self-hiring in the iSchools, demonstrates the interdisciplinary diversity of the emergent field of information and its constituent institutions.Master of ScienceSchool of InformationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62470/1/AWiggins-MTOPthesis-DeepBlue(2).pd

Intellectual Diversity and the Faculty Composition of iSchools

ABSTRACT We provide evidence and discuss findings regarding intellectual distribution and faculty composition of academic units involved in the iSchool community. To better understand the intellectual heritage and major influences shaping the development of the individual and collective identities in iSchools, we develop a classification of the intellectual domains of iSchool faculty education. We use this to develop a descriptive analysis of the community's intellectual composition. The discussion focuses on characterizing intellectual diversity in the iSchools. We conclude with a short discussion of the potential implications of these trends relative to the future development of the iSchool community

The future of citizen science: emerging technologies and shifting paradigms

Citizen science creates a nexus between science and education that, when coupled with emerging technologies, expands the frontiers of ecological research and public engagement. Using representative technologies and other examples, we examine the future of citizen science in terms of its research processes, program and participant cultures, and scientific communities. Future citizen‐science projects will likely be influenced by sociocultural issues related to new technologies and will continue to face practical programmatic challenges. We foresee networked, open science and the use of online computer/video gaming as important tools to engage non‐traditional audiences, and offer recommendations to help prepare project managers for impending challenges. A more formalized citizen‐science enterprise, complete with networked organizations, associations, journals, and cyberinfrastructure, will advance scientific research, including ecology, and further public education