Crowdsourcing as a tool for research: Implications of uncertainty

Edith Law, Krzysztof Z. Gajos, Andrea Wiggins, Mary L. Gray, Alex Williams

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

58 Scopus citations

Abstract

Numerous crowdsourcing platforms are now available to support research as well as commercial goals. However, crowdsourcing is not yet widely adopted by researchers for generating, processing or analyzing research data. This study develops a deeper understanding of the circumstances under which crowdsourcing is a useful, feasible or desirable tool for research, as well as the factors that may influence researchers' decisions around adopting crowdsourcing technology. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 researchers in diverse disciplines, spanning the humanities and sciences, to illuminate how research norms and practitioners' dispositions were related to uncertainties around research processes, data, knowledge, delegation and quality. The paper concludes with a discussion of the design implications for future crowdsourcing systems to support research.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCSCW 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages1544-1561
Number of pages18
ISBN (Electronic)9781450343350
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 25 2017
Externally publishedYes
Event2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2017 - Portland, United States
Duration: Feb 25 2017Mar 1 2017

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW

Other

Other2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2017
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPortland
Period2/25/173/1/17

Keywords

  • Citizen science
  • Crowdsourcing for research
  • Interviews

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Human-Computer Interaction

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