@unpublished {9999, title = {Motivating Participation through Novelty Cues}, year = {2020}, type = {Unpublished working paper}, abstract = {

The voluntary nature of participation in many open collaboration platforms means platform managers and system designers need to develop strategies to attract new participants and retain existing ones. Implementing features that positively impact users{\textquoteright} motivational states will help address challenges surrounding user recruitment and attrition. This paper reports on the design, implementation, and evaluation of one such feature {\textendash} novelty cues. Prior studies have shown that novel stimuli attract and increase attention towards objects. Citizen science projects regularly ask volunteers to classify data that no other human has seen previously. An experiment was designed where volunteers were shown novelty cues. The goal was to evaluate the saliency of novelty in motivating participation among citizen science volunteers. The results showed that under most circumstances, novelty cues are effective mechanisms to increase user motivation; however, its effectiveness may be mediated by other factors such as existing system design and individual preferences for novelty.

}, attachments = {https://citsci.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/Novelty_Motivator_2020.pdf}, author = {Corey Brian Jackson} } @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://citsci.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} } @conference {Crowston:2013, title = {Motivation and data quality in a citizen science game: A design science evaluation}, booktitle = {Forty-sixth Hawai{\textquoteright}i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-46)}, year = {2013}, month = {1/2013}, address = {Wailea, HI}, attachments = {https://citsci.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/hicss2013citizensort_cameraready.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston and Nathan Prestopnik} }