Finding Volunteers' Engagement Profiles in Human Computation for Citizen Science Projects

Lesandro Ponciano; Francisco Brasileiro

doi:10.15346/hc.v1i2.12

Authors

Lesandro Ponciano Federal University of Campina Grande
Francisco Brasileiro Federal University of Campina Grande

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15346/hc.v1i2.12

Keywords:

Citizen Science, Human Computation, Engagement, Participation, Retention

Abstract

Human computation is a computing approach that draws upon human cognitive abilities to solve computational tasks for which there are so far no satisfactory fully automated solutions even when using the most advanced computing technologies available. Human computation for citizen science projects consists in designing systems that allow large crowds of volunteers to contribute to scientific research by executing human computation tasks. Examples of successful projects are Galaxy Zoo and FoldIt. A key feature of this kind of project is its capacity to engage volunteers. An important requirement for the proposal and evaluation of new engagement strategies is having a clear understanding of the typical engagement of the volunteers; however, even though several projects of this kind have already been completed, little is known about this issue. In this paper, we investigate the engagement pattern of the volunteers in their interactions in human computation for citizen science projects, how they differ among themselves in terms of engagement, and how those volunteer engagement features should be taken into account for establishing the engagement encouragement strategies that should be brought into play in a given project. To this end, we define four quantitative engagement metrics to measure different aspects of volunteer engagement, and use data mining algorithms to identify the different volunteer profiles in terms of the engagement metrics. Our study is based on data collected from two projects: Galaxy Zoo and The Milky Way Project. The results show that the volunteers in such projects can be grouped into five distinct engagement profiles that we label as follows: hardworking, spasmodic, persistent, lasting, and moderate. The analysis of these profiles provides a deeper understanding of the nature of volunteers' engagement in human computation for citizen science projects.

Author Biographies

Lesandro Ponciano, Federal University of Campina Grande

Lesandro Ponciano received a B.Sc degree in Information Systems from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Brazil, in 2008, and an M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Brazil, in 2011. He is currently Ph.D. student at the Universidade Federal de Campina Grande. His research interests include distributed systems, human computation, e-science, and citizen science.

Francisco Brasileiro, Federal University of Campina Grande

Francisco Brasileiro is a Professor at the Universidade Federal de Campina Grande, Brazil. He received a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brazil in 1988, an M.Sc. degree from the same University in 1989, and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK in 1995. His research interests include distributed systems in general, with focus on federated and cooperative systems. He is a member of the Brazilian Computer Society, the ACM, and the IEEE Computer Society.

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