@article {642, title = {Encouraging Work in Citizen Science: Experiments in Goal Setting and Anchoring}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This paper describes the results of an online field experiment where we designed and analyzed the effects of a goal-setting tracker in an online citizen science project - Floating Forest. The design of our tracker was influenced by psychology theories of anchoring and goal-setting. Our results of our experiment revealed: (1) setting goals increases annotations in a session; (2) numeric anchors influence goals; and (3) participants in the treatment who saw a prompt but did not set a goal, contributed more annotations than the participants in the control group. Our research shows how goal-setting and anchoring combine to increase work in online communities.}, doi = {10.1145/2818052.2869129}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/CSCW-abstract.pdf}, author = {Corey Brian Jackson and Kevin Crowston and Gabriel Mugar and Carsten {\O}sterlund} } @proceedings {9999, title = {{\textquotedblleft}Guess what! You{\textquoteright}re the first to see this event{\textquotedblright}: Increasing Contribution to Online Production Communities}, year = {2016}, abstract = {

In this paper, we describe the results of an online field experiment examining the impacts of messaging about task novelty on the volume of volunteers{\textquoteright} contributions to an online citizen science project. Encouraging volunteers to provide a little more content as they work is an attractive strategy to increase the community{\textquoteright}s output. Prior research found that an important motivation for participation in online citizen science is the wonder of being the first person to observe a particular image. To appeal to this motivation, a pop-up message was added to an online citizen science project that alerted volunteers when they were the first to annotate a particular image. Our analysis reveals that new volunteers who saw these messages increased the volume of annotations they contributed. The results of our study suggest an additional strategy to increase the amount of work volunteers contribute to online communities and citizen science projects specifically.

}, doi = {10.1145/2957276.2957284}, author = {Corey Brian Jackson and Kevin Crowston and Gabriel Mugar and Carsten {\O}sterlund} } @proceedings {2016, title = {Which Way Did They Go? Newcomer Movement through the Zooniverse}, year = {2016}, month = {2016}, abstract = {

Research on newcomer roles in peer production sites (e.g., Wikipedia) is characterized by a broad and relatively well-articulated set of functionally and culturally recognizable roles. But not all communities come with well-defined roles that newcomers can aspire to occupy. The present study explores activity clusters newcomers create when faced with few recognizable roles to fill and limited access to other participants{\textquoteright} work that serves as an exemplar. Drawing on a mixed method research design, we present findings from an analysis of 1,687 newcomers{\textquoteright} sessions in a citizen science project. Combining session- and individual-level analysis produced three findings (1) newcomers activities manifest a diverse range of session types; (2) Newcomers toggle between light work sessions and more involved types of production or community engagement; (3) an interesting relationship between high-level contributors who do a lot of work but little talk and a small group that does a lot of talk but less work. The former group draws heavily on posts contributed by the latter group. Identifying shifts and regularities in contribution facilitate improved mechanisms for engaging participants and the design of online citizen science communities.

}, doi = {10.1145/2818048.2835197}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/CSCW2016-Roles.pdf}, author = {Corey Brian Jackson and Carsten {\O}sterlund and Maidel, Veronica and Kevin Crowston and Gabriel Mugar} } @proceedings {2015, title = {Being Present in Online Communities: Learning in Citizen Science}, year = {2015}, address = {Limerick, Ireland}, abstract = {

How online community members learn to become valuable contributors constitutes a long-standing concern of Community \& Technology researchers. The literature tends to highlight participants{\textquoteright} access to practice, feedback from experienced members, and relationship building. However, not all crowdsourcing environments offer participants opportunities for access, feedback, and relationship building (e.g., Citizen Science). We study how volunteers learn to participate in a citizen science project, Planet Hunters, through participant observation, interviews, and trace ethnography. Drawing on S{\o}rensen{\textquoteright}s sociomaterial theories of presence, we extend the notion of situated learning to include several modes of learning. The empirical findings suggest that volunteers in citizen science engage more than one form of access to practice, feedback, and relationship building. Communal relations characterize only one form of learning. Equally important to their learning are authority{\textendash}subject and agent-centered forms of access, feedback, and relationship building.

}, doi = {10.1145/2768545.2768555}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/C\%26T_2015_FINAL.pdf}, author = {Gabriel Mugar and Carsten {\O}sterlund and Corey Jackson and Kevin Crowston} } @proceedings {2015, title = {Motivations for sustained participation in crowdsourcing: The role of talk in a citizen science case study}, year = {2015}, month = {1/2015}, address = {Koloa, HI}, abstract = {

The paper explores the motivations of volunteers in a large crowd sourcing project and contributes to our understanding of the motivational factors that lead to deeper engagement beyond initial participation. Drawing on the theory of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) and the literature on motivation in crowd sourcing, we analyze interview and trace data from a large citizen science project. The analyses identify ways in which the technical features of the projects may serve as motivational factors leading participants towards sustained participation. The results suggest volunteers first engage in activities to support knowledge acquisition and later share knowledge with other volunteers and finally increase participation in Talk through a punctuated process of role discovery.

}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/Motivation\%20in\%20Talk\%20Submitted_FINAL\%28Formatted\%29.pdf}, author = {Corey Brian Jackson and Carsten {\O}sterlund and Gabriel Mugar and Kevin Crowston and Katie DeVries Hassman} } @proceedings {9999, title = {Planet Hunters and Seafloor Explorers: Legitimate Peripheral Participation Through Practice Proxies in Online Citizen Science}, year = {2014}, month = {2/2014}, abstract = {

Making the traces of user participation in primary activities visible in online crowdsourced initiatives has been shown to help new users understand the norms of participation but participants do not always have access to others{\textquoteright} work. Through a combination of virtual and trace ethnography we explore how new users in two online citizen science projects engage other traces of activity as a way of compensating. Merging the theory of legitimate peripheral participation with Erickson and Kellogg{\textquoteright}s theory of social translucence we introduce the concept of practice proxies; traces of user activities in online environment that act as resources to orient newcomers towards the norms of practice. Our findings suggest that newcomers seek out practice proxies in the social features of the projects that highlight contextualized and specific characteristics of primary work practice.

}, doi = {10.1145/2531602.2531721}, attachments = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/paper_revised\%20copy\%20to\%20post.pdf}, author = {Gabriel Mugar and Carsten {\O}sterlund and Katie DeVries Hassman and Kevin Crowston and Corey Brian Jackson} }