Gaming for Good : Exploring the potential and pitfalls of citizen science games

• The aim of gamification is to use of game features, such as points and badges, to make non game-activities more fun than they would otherwise be [2]. Researchers including [5] have pointed to citizen science as an opportunity for gamification, noting “motivations driven by interest in technology and rewards, such as online gaming badge and competitions” could support volunteer motivation and retention.” Similarly, [9] demonstrated that games can support engagement “by allowing volunteers to participate in a range of social interactions and through enabling meaningful recognition of achievements.” However, when gamification is used in citizen science, such motivators must be balanced with the need for relevant scientific outcomes [7]. A brief review of the literature reveals that the use of gamification in citizen science has raised both enthusiasm and criticism. Some critics question the normative desirability of using games in science and warn against the suggestion of the power-solving potential of internet-facilitated game-like crowdsourcing. Specifically, [3] argued that this “crowdsourcing model of research has the potential to cause harm to participants, manipulates the participant into continued participation, and uses participants as experimental subjects.” Of those who advocate and employ games in science, some found that crowdsourced image analysis application can be fruitful [e.g., 6, explores a case of crowdsourced game-based analysis system for quantifying malaria parasites in digitized images of thick blood smears]. Another recent study of two purposeful games for citizen science, [8] found that different reward systems and gamification approaches can influence player recruitment and retention, as well as the way players experience these games, but that these modalities need not adversely impact data quality. References 1. Sebastian Deterding, Miguel Sicart, Lennart E. Nacke, Kenton O'Hara, and Dan Dixon. 2011. Gamification: Using game design elements in non- gaming contexts. In CHI '11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2425-2428. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1979742.1979575 2. Sebastian Deterding, Seth Cooper, Alessandro Canossa, Lennart E. Nacke, Casper Harteveld, and Jennifer R. Whitson. 2015. CHI 2015 workshop “Researching gamification: Strategies, opportunities, challenges, ethics”. CHI 2015, April 19, 2015, Seoul, South Korea. Retrieved May 6, 2015 from http://gamification-research.org/chi2015/n 3. Mark A. Graber, Abraham Graber. 2013. Internet-based crowdsourcing and research ethics: The case for IRB review. J Med Ethics 39: 115-118. 4. Jennifer Preece, Anne Bowser. 2014. What HCI can do for citizen science. In Proceedings of the extended abstracts of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI EA '14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1059-1060. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2559206.2590805 5. Greg Newman, Andrea Wiggins, Alycia Crall, Eric Graham, Sarah Newman, and Kevin Crowston. 2012. The future of citizen science: Emerging technologies and shifting paradigms. Front Ecol Environment 10, 6: 298-304. Retrieved May 11, 2015 from http://www.esajournals.org/doi/full/10.1890/1102 94 6. Miguel Angel Luengo-Oroz, Asier Arranz, John Frean. 2012. Crowdsourcing malaria parasite quantification: An online game for analyzing images of infected thick blood smears. J Med Internet Res 14, 6:e167. doi: 10.2196/jmir.2338 7. Seth Cooper. 2014. A Framework for Scientific Discovery Through Video Games. Association for Computing Machinery and Morgan & Claypool, New York, NY, USA. 8. Nathan Prestopnik, Kevin Crowston, Jun Wang. 2014. Exploring data quality in games with a purpose. In iConference Proceedings, Maxi Kindling and Elke Greifeneder (Eds.), 213-227. Illinois: iSchools. doi:10.9776/14010 9. Ioanna Iacovides, Charlene Jennett, Cassandra Cornish-Trestrail, and Anna L. Cox. 2013. Do games attract or sustain engagement in citizen science?: a study of volunteer motivations. In CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1101-1106. DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2468356.2468553

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

citizen science

games

gamification

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