1,721,001 research outputs found
Interactions with researchers in online citizen science projects
No full textNew forms of grouping used to conduct scientific research in collaboration with people outside the scientific community are growing, known as crowd science. One way to involve the crowd is with citizen science projects, that are researches involving joint efforts between professional researches and citizens in the collection and analyses of data. The benefits brought by this cooperation in citizen science projects are profitable for both researchers and citizens: more hours of work devoted to the project and reduced costs of scientific research; increased literacy and technology knowledge for the citizens; stimulated connections among researches and people; and, finally, an enjoyable experience for the public. The huge amount of data to be collected and analyzed needs a great number of participants helping the professional scientists. Advances in information technology have helped in involving a higher number of people through the web, however the methodologies used to increase motivations to participate are still a crucial issue in citizen science online projects. In this paper, we test the interaction with the professional researchers as a technique to increase citizen scientists’ motivations to contribute. Our explorative findings quantify the motivations increase to participate in citizen science projects brought by this technique and moderated by the effect of age. These results are useful to better manage citizen science projects and could be extended also to other crowd based activities
Activating social strategies: Face-to-face interaction in technology-mediated citizen science
Full text linkThe use of crowds in research activities by public and private organizations is growing under different forms. Citizen science is a popular means of engaging the general public in research activities led by professional scientists. By involving a large number of amateur scientists, citizen science enables distributed data collection and analysis on a scale that would be otherwise difficult and costly to achieve. While advancements in information technology in the past few decades have fostered the growth of citizen science through online participation, several projects continue to fail due to limited participation. Such web-based projects may isolate the citizen scientists from the researchers. By adopting the perspective of social strategy, we investigate within a measure-manipulate-measure experiment if motivations to participate in a citizen science project can be positively influenced by a face-to-face interaction with the scientists leading the project. Such an interaction provides the participants with the possibility of asking questions on the spot and obtaining a detailed explanation of the citizen science project, its scientific merit, and environmental relevance. Social and cultural factors that moderate the effect brought about by face-to-face interactions on the motivations are also dissected and analyzed. Our findings provide an exploratory insight into a means for motivating crowds to participate in online environmental monitoring projects, also offering possible selection criteria of target audience
A model for citizen scientist contribution in an image tagging task
No full textACitizen science projects are becoming increasingly popular, yet they typically rely on only a small portion of users for the ma- jority of contribution. In this paper, we propose a model for cit- izen scientist contribution in an online image tagging task. The model describes participant contribution in response to the per- formance of a virtual peer, the behavior of which can be con- trolled by the experimenter. Experimental trials where the vir- tual peer behaves independent of the participant are used to cal- ibrate the model. The model's ability to predict participant per- formance is then verified in a closed-loop condition, where the behavior of the virtual peer is explicitly dependant on the perfor- mance of the participant. We foresee this model being a useful tool in the design of web-based citizen science projects, where the behavior of a virtual peer can be used to modulate the per- formance of contributors in an effort to increase overall levels of contribution
Increasing citizen science contribution using a virtual peer
No full textOnline participation is becoming an increasingly common means for individuals to contribute to citizen science projects, yet such projects often rely on only a small fraction of participants to make the majority of contributions. Here, we investigate a means for influencing the performance of citizen scientists toward enhancing overall participation. Building on past social comparison research, we pair citizen scientists with a software-based virtual peer in an environmental monitoring project. Through a series of experiments in which virtual peers outperform, underperform, or perform similarly to human participants, we investigate the influence of their presence on citizen science participation. To offer insight into the psychological determinants to the response to this intervention, we propose a new dynamic model describing the bidirectional interaction between humans and virtual peers. Our results demonstrate that participant contribution can be enhanced through the presence of a virtual peer, creating a feedback loop where participants tend to increase or decrease their contribution in response to their peers' performance. By including virtual peers that systematically outperform the participants, we demonstrate a fourfold increase in their contribution to the citizen science project
Increasing patient engagement in rehabilitation through citizen science
No full textIn this paper, we investigate the effects of including scientific tasks on the satisfaction of patients performing rehabilitation exercises. A low-cost system, comprised of a haptic joystick and a laptop computer, is used for patients to interact with a virtual environment. Within the virtual environment, users are presented with and classify images captured by a robot as part of a citizen science project. Results show that higher levels of satisfaction are attained when the exercise includes scientific tasks
Spatial memory training in a citizen science context
No full textMemory deficit is one of the primary effects of intellectual disability, and has a great impact on daily life. Here, we propose a novel spatial memory training system based on a citizen science virtual environment, in which users navigate an aquatic robot in a polluted canal and identify specific objects from images acquired by the robot. A portable low-cost electroencephalography device is utilized to enhance the degree of interactivity and enable real-time estimation of the affective state of the user. We involved a cohort of 60 healthy adult subjects to evaluate users' interest, memory performance, and affective variables as a function of navigation modality (active versus passive) and interface (a traditional computer mouse versus the headset). Despite offering a higher level of difficulty, the headset was preferred over a traditional mouse control by the users, whose spatial memory performance did not vary with the navigation modality or the interface. Active navigation was found to lead to a higher level of engagement, as measured by the headset. These findings suggest the possibility of a new, effective, and entertaining form of intellectual rehabilitation with potential impact on fetal alcohol syndrome
Increasing patient engagement in rehabilitation exercises using computer-based citizen science.
Full text linkPatient motivation is an important factor to consider when developing rehabilitation programs. Here, we explore the effectiveness of active participation in web-based citizen science activities as a means of increasing participant engagement in rehabilitation exercises, through the use of a low-cost haptic joystick interfaced with a laptop computer. Using the joystick, patients navigate a virtual environment representing the site of a citizen science project situated in a polluted canal. Participants are tasked with following a path on a laptop screen representing the canal. The experiment consists of two conditions: in one condition, a citizen science component where participants classify images from the canal is included; and in the other, the citizen science component is absent. Both conditions are tested on a group of young patients undergoing rehabilitation treatments and a group of healthy subjects. A survey administered at the end of both tasks reveals that participants prefer performing the scientific task, and are more likely to choose to repeat it, even at the cost of increasing the time of their rehabilitation exercise. Furthermore, performance indices based on data collected from the joystick indicate significant differences in the trajectories created by patients and healthy subjects, suggesting that the low-cost device can be used in a rehabilitation setting for gauging patient recovery
A natural user interface to integrate citizen science and physical exercise
Full text linkCitizen
science
enables
volunteers
to contribute
to scientific
projects,
where
massive
data
collection
and
analysis
are
often
required.
Volunteers
participate
in citizen
science
activi-
ties
online
from
their
homes
or in the
field
and
are
motivated
by
both
intrinsic
and
extrinsic
factors.
Here,
we
investigated
the
possibility
of integrating
citizen
science
tasks
within
physical
exercises
envisaged
as
part
of a potential
rehabilitation
therapy
session.
The
citi-
zen
science
activity
entailed
environmental
mapping
of a polluted
body
of water
using
a
miniature
instrumented
boat,
which
was
remotely
controlled
by
the
participants
through
their
physical
gesture
tracked
by
a low-cost
markerless
motion
capture
system.
Our
find-
ings
demonstrate
that
the
natural
user
interface
offers
an
engaging
and
effective
means
for
performing
environmental
monitoring
tasks.
At
the
same
time,
the
citizen
science
activ-
ity
increases
the
commitment
of the
participants,
leading
to a better
motion
performance,
quantified
through
an
array
of objective
indices.
The
study
constitutes
a first
and
neces-
sary
step
toward
rehabilitative
treatments
of the
upper
limb
through
citizen
science
and
low-cost
markerless
optical
system
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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