@article {9999, title = {Folksonomies to support coordination and coordination of folksonomies}, journal = {Computer Supported Cooperative Work}, volume = {27}, year = {2018}, pages = {647{\textendash}678}, abstract = {

Members of highly-distributed groups in online production communities face challenges in achieving coordinated action. Existing CSCW research highlights the importance of shared language and artifacts when coordinating actions in such settings. To better understand how such shared language and artifacts are, not only a guide for, but also a result of collaborative work we examine the development of folksonomies (i.e., volunteer-generated classification schemes) to support coordinated action. Drawing on structuration theory, we conceptualize a folksonomy as an interpretive schema forming a structure of signification. Our study is set in the context of an online citizen-science project, Gravity Spy, in which volunteers label "glitches" (noise events recorded by a scientific instrument) to identify and name novel classes of glitches. Through a multi-method study combining virtual and trace ethnography, we analyze folksonomies and the work of labelling as mutually constitutive, giving folksonomies a dual role: an emergent folksonomy supports the volunteers in labelling images at the same time that the individual work of labelling images supports the development of a folksonomy. However, our analysis suggests that the lack of supporting norms and authoritative resources (structures of legitimation and domination) undermines the power of the folksonomy and so the ability of volunteers to coordinate their decisions about naming novel glitch classes. These results have implications design. If we hope to support the development of emergent folksonomies online production communities need to facilitate 1) tag gardening, a process of consolidating overlapping terms of artifacts; 2) demarcate a clear home for discourses around folksonomy disagreements; 3) highlight clearly when decisions have been reached; and 4) inform others about those decisions.

}, doi = {10.1007/s10606-018-9327-z}, url = {https://rdcu.be/NZ7E}, attachments = {https://citsci.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/ECSCW-Paper-Final.pdf}, author = {Corey Brian Jackson and Kevin Crowston and Carsten {\O}sterlund and Mahboobeh Harandi} } @conference {2013, title = {Forgotten island: A story-driven citizen science adventure}, booktitle = {CHI {\textquoteright}13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems}, year = {2013}, month = {4/2013}, pages = {2643{\textendash}2646}, publisher = {ACM Press}, organization = {ACM Press}, address = {Paris, France}, abstract = {

Forgotten Island, a citizen science video game, is part of an NSF-funded design science research project, Citizen Sort. It is a mechanism to help life scientists classify photographs of living things and a research tool to help HCI and information science scholars explore storytelling, engagement, and the quality of citizenproduced data in the context of citizen science.

}, isbn = {9781450319522}, doi = {10.1145/2468356.2479484}, url = {http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/2480000/2479484/p2643-prestopnik.pdf}, author = {Nathan Prestopnik and Souid, Dania} } @article {2012, title = {The future of citizen science: emerging technologies and shifting paradigms}, journal = {Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment}, volume = {10}, year = {2012}, month = {08/2012}, pages = {298{\textendash}304}, abstract = {

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.

}, issn = {1540-9295}, doi = {10.1890/110294}, url = {http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/110294}, author = {Newman, Greg and Wiggins, Andrea and Crall, Alycia and Graham, Eric and Newman, Sarah and Kevin Crowston} } @conference {2011, title = {From Conservation to Crowdsourcing: A Typology of Citizen Science}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Forty-fourth Hawai{\textquoteright}i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-44)}, year = {2011}, month = {1/2011}, address = {Koloa, HI}, abstract = {

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{\textemdash}Action, Conservation, Investigation, Virtual, and Education{\textemdash}that differ in primary project goals and the importance of physical environment to participation.

}, attachments = {https://citsci.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/hicss-44.pdf}, author = {Wiggins, Andrea and Kevin Crowston} }