Abstract
Previous research investigating motivations in citizen science have focused mostly on environmental citizen science projects. In this paper we focus specifically on citizen psychology projects, which we term 'citizen psych-science'. We argue that citizen psych-science differs from typical citizen science projects because volunteers are asked to contribute personal data. Furthermore we argue that the personal nature of such contributions can have unanticipated consequences on volunteer's motivations to contribute and their experiences of participating in the project. Exploring these issues in more detail, we describe four research studies that we conducted with Errordiary, a citizen psych-science project where volunteers tweet about their everyday experiences of human error. These studies included: (1) an interview study to explore motivations of 8 Errordiary volunteers, and (2) one workshop and two focus groups, to explore the potential of attracting new communities to the project. One of our main findings is that the risks associated with sharing errors on Errordiary, such as negative perceptions from others, being viewed as incompetent at your workplace, may counteract a person’s general good will to help researchers. We suggest several ways that researchers can help citizen psych-science volunteers feel like they are in a safe space to contribute their experiences towards research. These include clearly communicating the purpose of their research, allowing the use of pseudonyms, explaining how data is protected, and ensuring that proper monitoring controls are in place.
Highlights
Virtual citizen science is a type of crowdsourcing in which members of the public collaborate online with professional researchers to conduct scientific research
In this paper we focus on virtual citizen science projects that contribute to psychology research, which we term ‘citizen psych-science’
All 8 participants had a personal connection to University College London Interaction Centre (UCLIC): they had either studied/worked at UCLIC themselves (4 participants), they had collaborated on a project with UCLIC researchers (2 participants), or they were close friends with UCLIC researchers (2 participants)
Summary
Virtual citizen science is a type of crowdsourcing in which members of the public collaborate online with professional researchers to conduct scientific research. Sometimes this involves collecting environmental data outdoors, perhaps taking photos of animals or collecting noise readings. We are beginning to see growing numbers of projects in other research domains, including neuroscience (Eyewire, Foldit), English literature (Transcribe Bentham), history (Ancient Lives) and psychology (Mappiness, Errordiary, Lab in the Wild). In virtual citizen science projects, scientists can potentially recruit help from a large network of people (Wiggins & Crowston, 2011). Attracting and maintaining such a network can be difficult To tackle this problem, scientists have started conducting research to understand the.
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