Free as in Puppies: Compensating for ICT Constraints in Citizen Science
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This document discusses how citizen science project organizers address issues related to participation and data quality when limited by resource constraints. It notes that while ideal information and communication technologies (ICT) could help with recruitment, retention, and data quality, free ICT options are often not sufficient due to lack of funding. The document presents three citizen science projects that have contrasting resource levels and explores how they creatively address these issues through alternative solutions like in-person outreach, paper data collection, and process optimization. It concludes by discussing implications for practice, policy, and CSCW research around leveraging complementary resources when full ICT capabilities are not possible.
Free as in Puppies: Compensating for ICT Constraints in Citizen Science
- 1. Free As In Puppies: Compensating for ICT Constraints in Citizen Science Andrea Wiggins University of New Mexico & Cornell University andrea.wiggins@cornell.edu @AndreaWiggins
- 3. A few examples 3
- 4. Related Work ✦ Participant-focused ✦ Individual learning Trumbull et al., 2000 (many more in Informal Science Education) ✦ Motivation Nov et al., 2011; Rotman et al., 2012; Raddick et al., 2009
- 5. Related Work ✦ Project-focused ✦ Typologies Cooper et al., 2007; Bonney et al., 2009; Wiggins & Crowston, 2010 ✦ Data quality Sheppard & Terveen, 2011; Wiggins et al., 2011; Wiggins et al., 2012
- 6. Assumptions More people Cool Miracle More Better $$$ new occurs data science ICT Better data
- 7. Reality ✦ There is no money ✦ Free ICT are “free as in puppies” ✦ ICT is just one part of a complex sociotechnical system
- 8. Research Question ✦ RQ: How do citizen science project organizers address key issues related to participation & data quality when resource constraints limit ICT options?
- 9. Research Question ✦ RQ: How do citizen science project organizers address key issues related to participation & data quality when resource constraints limit ICT options? ✦ Answer: Creatively! ✦ Improving participation processes ✦ Expanding participation options ✦ Investing money & time strategically
- 10. Research Design ✦ Comparative case study ✦ Theoretical sampling ✦ Project-level focus
- 11. Research Design ✦ Data ✦ Interviews ✦ Documents ✦ Participation ✦ Observation ✦ Analysis ✦ Inductive & deductive qualitative content analysis
- 12. Case Selection ✦ Same core tasks ✦ Go outside, look at stuff, submit data ✦ Similar purpose ✦ Conservation, education, research ✦ Contrasting resources ✦ eBird: 4.5 FTE, ~$300K/yr ✦ GSP & MW: 0.5/1.5 FTE, ~$15K/yr
- 16. Recruitment ✦ #1 strategy: direct in-person contact ✦ ICT solution ✦ Effortless social recommendation via existing community practices: “This report was generated automatically by eBird v3” ✦ Alternate solution ✦ Data collected on paper ✦ Saturation marketing
- 17. Retention ✦ ICT solution ✦ Mind-blowing data visualizations
- 18. Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea)
- 19. Retention ✦ ICT solution ✦ Mind-blowing data visualizations ✦ Alternate solutions ✦ Optimize participation processes ✦ Expand participation options* ✦ New communication strategies* *bonus research opportunities!
- 20. Data Quality X Dogbird Catbird
- 21. Data Quality ✦ ICT solution ✦ Algorithmically flag outliers for review by small army of experts ✦ Alternate solutions ✦ Hone protocols ✦ Invest in good data entry forms ✦ Use complementary data sources
- 22. Implications for Practice ✦ Good ICT is awesome - when you can afford it ✦ When you can’t... ✦ Combine available ICT with other (human, organizational) resources ✦ Unique resources often taken for granted ✦ Beware of free puppies
- 23. Implications for Policy ✦ Citizen science is growing up ✦ Valid to fund on scientific merit ✦ Need better means of evaluating scientific merit of citizen science ✦ Consider ROI of research ✦ 1 week on oceanographic research vessel for a handful of researchers ✦ 1 year of eBird & 60M global data points used by 120K people/day
- 24. Implications for CSCW ✦ When ICT options are limited, look for complementary resources & compensatory strategies ✦ Opportunity for cross-context comparisons ✦ Online communities ✦ Distributed scientific work ✦ Peer production
- 25. Questions? ✦ Research made possible by... ✦ U.S. NSF ✦ eBird VOSS-0943049, ✦ The Great Sunf SOCS-0968470, & OCI-0830944 ✦ Awesome CSCW ✦ reviewers ✦ Mydissertation committee