TY - JOUR T1 - Surveying the citizen science landscape JF - First Monday Y1 - 2015 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Kevin Crowston AB -
Citizen science has seen enormous growth in recent years, in part due to the influence of the Internet, and a corresponding growth in interest. However, the few stand-out examples that have received attention from media and researchers are not representative of the diversity of the field as a whole, and therefore may not be the best models for those seeking to study or start a citizen science project. In this work, we present the results of a survey of citizen science project leaders, identifying sub-groups of project types according to a variety of features related to project design and management, including funding sources, goals, participant activities, data quality processes, and social interaction. These combined features highlight the diversity of citizen science, providing an overview of the breadth of the phenomenon and laying a foundation for comparison between citizen science projects and to other online communities.
VL - 26 UR - https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5520 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Free/Libre Open Source Software Development: What we know and what we do not know JF - ACM Computing Surveys Y1 - 2012 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Kangning Wei A1 - James Howison A1 - Wiggins, Andrea AB - We review the empirical research on Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) development and assess the state of the literature. We develop a framework for organizing the literature based on the input-mediator-output- input (IMOI) model from the small groups literature. We present a quantitative summary of articles selected for the review and then discuss findings of this literature categorized into issues pertaining to inputs (e.g., member characteristics, technology use and project characteristics), processes (software development and social processes), emergent states (e.g., trust and task related states) and outputs (e.g. team performance, FLOSS implementation and project evolution). Based on this review, we suggest topics for future research, as well as identifying methodological and theoretical issues for future inquiry in this area, including issues relating to sampling and the need for more longitudinal studies. VL - 44 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The future of citizen science: emerging technologies and shifting paradigms JF - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment Y1 - 2012 A1 - Newman, Greg A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Crall, Alycia A1 - Graham, Eric A1 - Newman, Sarah A1 - Kevin Crowston AB -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.
VL - 10 UR - http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/110294 IS - 6 JO - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment ER - TY - Generic T1 - Goals and tasks: Two typologies of citizen science projects T2 - Forty-fifth Hawai’i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-45) Y1 - 2012 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Kevin Crowston AB -Citizen science is a form of research collaboration involving members of the public in scientific research projects to address real-world problems. Often organized as a virtual collaboration, these projects are a type of open movement, with collective goals addressed through open participation in research tasks. We conducted a survey of citizen science projects to elicit multiple aspects of project design and operation. We then clustered projects based on the tasks performed by participants and on the project’s stated goals. The clustering results group projects that show similarities along other dimensions, suggesting useful divisions of the projects.
JF - Forty-fifth Hawai’i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-45) CY - Wailea, HI ER - TY - Generic T1 - Describing public participation in scientific research Y1 - 2011 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Kevin Crowston AB - We report the results of a descriptive survey of citizen science projects, a form of scientific collaboration engaging members of the public with professional researchers. This phenomenon has seen explosive growth in recent years and is garnering interest from a broadening variety of research domains. However, the lack of adequate description of this diverse population hinders useful research. To address this gap, we conducted a survey of citizen science projects. We present a description of the phenomenon to establish a basis for sampling and evaluation of research on citizen science, including details on project resources, participation, technologies, goals, and outcomes. We then reflect on several points of potential development, including technologies to support participation, potential for expanding engagement, and data policies. The diverse organizational and functional arrangements in citizen science projects suggest a variety of areas for future research. PB - Syracuse University School of Information Studies U1 - Rejected iConference 2012 submission ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Design for Citizen Science Workshop Report Y1 - 2011 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea PB - Syracuse University School of Information Studies CY - Syracuse, NY ER - TY - CONF T1 - From Conservation to Crowdsourcing: A Typology of Citizen Science T2 - Proceedings of the Forty-fourth Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-44) Y1 - 2011 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Kevin Crowston AB -Citizen science is a form of research collaboration involving members of the public in scientific research projects to address real-world problems. Often organized as a virtual collaboration, these projects are a type of open movement, with collective goals addressed through open participation in research tasks. Existing typologies of citizen science projects focus primarily on the structure of participation, paying little attention to the organizational and macrostructural properties that are important to designing and managing effective projects and technologies. By examining a variety of project characteristics, we identified five types—Action, Conservation, Investigation, Virtual, and Education—that differ in primary project goals and the importance of physical environment to participation.
JF - Proceedings of the Forty-fourth Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-44) CY - Koloa, HI ER - TY - CONF T1 - Mechanisms for Data Quality and Validation in Citizen Science T2 - "Computing for Citizen Science" workshop at the IEEE eScience Conference Y1 - 2011 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Newman, Greg A1 - Stevenson, Robert D. A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - Citizen Science KW - data quality KW - data validation AB - Data quality is a primary concern for researchers employing public participation in scientific research, or “citizen science,” to accomplish data collection and analysis tasks. This mode of scientific collaboration relies on contributions from a large, often unknown population of volunteers with widely variable expertise. In this paper, we review the commonly employed mechanisms for ensuring data quality. We also discuss results of a survey of citizen science projects that reports on the use of some of these mechanisms, noting that it is most common for projects to employ multiple mechanisms to ensure data quality and appropriate levels of validation. JF - "Computing for Citizen Science" workshop at the IEEE eScience Conference CY - Stockholm, Sweden UR - http://itee.uq.edu.au/~eresearch/workshops/compcitsci2011/index.html ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Validity issues in the use of social network analysis with digital trace data JF - Journal of the Association for Information Systems Y1 - 2011 A1 - James Howison A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Wiggins, Andrea AB -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 ten validity issues associated with the combination of data digital trace data and social network analysis methods, with examples from the IS literature, to provide recommendations for improving the validity of research using this combination.
VL - 12 UR - http://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/vol12/iss12/2/ IS - 12 ER - TY - Generic T1 - Analyzing Leadership Dynamics in Distributed Group Communication T2 - Proceedings of the Forty-third Hawaiʼi International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-43) Y1 - 2010 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - James Howison KW - FLOSS KW - Leadership AB - We apply social network analysis (SNA) to examine the dynamics of leadership in distributed groups, specifically Free/Libre Open Source Software development projects, and its relation to group performance. Based on prior work on leadership in distributed groups, we identify leaders with those who make the highest level of contribution to the group and assess the degree of leadership by measuring centralization of communications. We compare the dynamics of leadership in two FLOSS projects, one more and one less effective. We find that in both projects, centralization was higher in developer-oriented communications venues than in user-oriented venues, suggesting higher degrees of leadership in developer venues. However, we do not find a consistent relation between centralization and effectiveness. We suggest that SNA can instead be useful for identifying interesting periods in the history of the project, e.g., periods where the leadership of the project is in transition. JF - Proceedings of the Forty-third Hawaiʼi International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-43) CY - Kauai, HI, 5–8 January ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Developing a Conceptual Model of Virtual Organizations for Citizen Science JF - International Journal of Organizational Design and Engineering Y1 - 2010 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Kevin Crowston AB -This paper develops an organization design-oriented conceptual model of scientific knowledge production through citizen science virtual organizations. Citizen science is a form of organization design for collaborative scientific research involving scientists and volunteers, for which Internet-based modes of participation enable massive virtual collaboration by thousands of members of the public. The conceptual model provides an example of a theory development process and discusses its application to an exploratory study. The paper contributes a multi-level process model for organizing investigation into the impact of design on this form of scientific knowledge production.
VL - 1 UR - http://www.inderscience.com/filter.php?aid=35191 IS - 1/2 ER - TY - CONF T1 - Distributed Scientific Collaboration: Research Opportunities in Citizen Science T2 - The Changing Dynamics of Scientific Collaboration, CSCW 2010 workshop Y1 - 2010 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Kevin Crowston AB - This paper introduces a conceptual framework for research on citizen science, a form of collaboration involving scientists and volunteers in scientific research. Designing CSCW systems to support this type of scientific collaboration requires understanding the effects of organizational and work design on the scientific outcomes of citizen science projects. Initial directions for future research are identified, with the goal of developing a foundation for research on and development of cyberinfrastructure and collaborative technologies for supporting citizen science. JF - The Changing Dynamics of Scientific Collaboration, CSCW 2010 workshop CY - Savannah, GA UR - http://www.sci.utah.edu/cscw2010papers.html ER - TY - Generic T1 - Reclassifying Success and Tragedy in FLOSS Projects T2 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS) Y1 - 2010 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Kevin Crowston AB - This paper presents the results of a replication of English & Schweik’s 2007 paper classifying FLOSS projects according to their stage of growth and indicators of success. We recreated the analysis using a comparable data set from 2006, with one additional point in time. We also expanded upon the original results by applying different criteria for evaluating the rate of new software releases for sustainability of project activity. We discuss the points of convergence and divergence from the original work from these extensions of the classification, and their implications for studying FLOSS development using archival data. The paper contributes new analysis of operationalizing success in FLOSS projects, with discussion of implications of the findings. JF - Proceedings of the International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS) CY - Notre Dame, IN, USA N1 - The attached zip file (OSS2010AnalysisScripts.zip) contains scripts for replicating the research. The data files for this analysis can be retrieved from: http://flossdb.syr.edu/classifier_summary_data.sql.gz (10 MB) http://flossdb.syr.edu/classifier_results.sql.gz (6 MB) ER - TY - CONF T1 - Designing Virtual Organizations for Citizen Science T2 - IFIP Working Group 8.2 OASIS workshop 2009 Y1 - 2009 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Kevin Crowston ED - Uri Gal JF - IFIP Working Group 8.2 OASIS workshop 2009 CY - Phoenix, AZ UR - http://sprouts.aisnet.org/9-56/ ER - TY - Generic T1 - Heartbeat: Measuring Active User Base and Potential User Interest in FLOSS Projects T2 - Proceedings of The Fifth International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS) Y1 - 2009 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - James Howison A1 - Kevin Crowston ED - Boldyreff, Cornelia ED - Kevin Crowston ED - Lundell, Björn ED - Wasserman, Tony AB - This paper presents a novel method and algorithm to measure the size of an open source project’s 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. JF - Proceedings of The Fifth International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS) PB - Springer Boston CY - Skövde, Sweden, 3-6 June VL - 299 SN - 978-3-642-02031-5 ER - TY - Generic T1 - Asynchronous Decision-Making in Distributed Teams (Poster) Y1 - 2008 A1 - Li, Qing A1 - Heckman, Robert A1 - Allen, Eileen E. A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - James Howison A1 - Wiggins, Andrea KW - Decision-Making KW - FLOSS JF - Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work CY - San Diego, CA ER - TY - Generic T1 - eResearch workflows for studying free and open source software development T2 - Proceedings of the IFIP 2.13 Working Conference on Open Source Software (OSS) Y1 - 2008 A1 - James Howison A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - eResearch KW - FLOSS KW - Workflow AB - This paper proposes a demonstration of eResearch workflow tools as a model for the research community studying free and open source software and its development. For purposes of background and justification, the paper first introduces eResearch as increasingly practiced in fields such as astrophysics and biology, then contrasts the practice of research on free and open source software. After outlining the suitable public data sources the paper introduces a class of tools known as scientific workflow frameworks, specifically focusing on one---Taverna---and introducing its features. To further explain the tool a complete workflow used for original research on FLOSS is described and the agenda for the live demonstration is outlined. JF - Proceedings of the IFIP 2.13 Working Conference on Open Source Software (OSS) CY - Milan, Italy, 7-10 September N1 - Slides from the presentation at the Oxford eResearch Conference of lessons learned in replicating research in eResearch workflows. ER - TY - Generic T1 - eSocialScience for Free/Libre Open Source Software researchers T2 - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science Y1 - 2008 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison A1 - Wiggins, Andrea KW - eScience KW - FLOSS AB - 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. JF - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science CY - Manchester, UK, 18-20 June ER - TY - Generic T1 - Opportunities for eScience research on Free/Libre Open Source Software T2 - Proceedings of the Oxford e-Research 08 Conference Y1 - 2008 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison A1 - Wiggins, Andrea JF - Proceedings of the Oxford e-Research 08 Conference CY - Oxford, England, 11-13 September ER - TY - Generic T1 - Replication of FLOSS Research as eResearch T2 - Proceedings of the Oxford e-Research Conference 08 Y1 - 2008 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - James Howison A1 - Kevin Crowston AB - We are working to introduce the ideas of eResearch to a multi-disciplinary research domain: those researchers examining Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) and its development (Howison, Wiggins, & Crowston, 2008). The first phase of this work focused on building a repository for data on FLOSS teams, FLOSSmole (Howison, Conklin, & Crowston, 2006), and collaborating with other nascent data repositories in the field. Recently we have begun a second phase, which is to introduce another established principle of eResearch, that of broader collaboration through shared workflows accessing these data repositories. To provide an example of the potential value of this principle, we are replicating seminal FLOSS papers using eResearch approaches. This paper describes research outcomes and lessons learned from translating published literature into eResearch workflows. JF - Proceedings of the Oxford e-Research Conference 08 CY - Oxford, England, 11-13 September ER - TY - Generic T1 - Social dynamics of FLOSS team communication across channels T2 - Proceedings of the IFIP 2.13 Working Conference on Open Source Software (OSS) Y1 - 2008 A1 - Wiggins, Andrea A1 - James Howison A1 - Kevin Crowston KW - FLOSS AB - This paper extends prior investigation into the social dynamics of free and open source (FLOSS) teams by examining the methodological questions arising from research using social network analysis on open source projects. We evaluate the validity of data sampling by examining dynamics of communication centralization, which vary across multiple communication channels. We also introduce a method for intensity-based smoothing in dynamic social network analysis. JF - Proceedings of the IFIP 2.13 Working Conference on Open Source Software (OSS) PB - Springer Boston CY - Milan, Italy, 7-10 September SN - 978-0-387-09683-4 ER - TY - Generic T1 - Investigating the Dynamics of FLOSS Development Teams (Poster) Y1 - 2007 A1 - Li, Na A1 - Li, Qing A1 - Kangning Wei A1 - Heckman, Robert A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - Liddy, Elizabeth D. A1 - James Howison A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Allen, Eileen E. A1 - Scialdone, Michael J. A1 - Inoue, Keisuke A1 - Harwell, Sarah A1 - Rowe, Steven A1 - McCracken, Nancy A1 - Wiggins, Andrea N1 - SD 2007 poster - Full Adobe PDF 2007 HSD PI's conference poster reporting on the grant project work to date in a full Adobe PDF file. HSD 2007 poster - Small PDF HSD 2007 conference grant progress reporting poster in a smaller PDF file. ER -