Gamers, citizen scientists, and data: Exploring participant contributions in two games with a purpose

作者:

Highlights:

• Two citizen science games are compared, one points-based and one story-based.

• The study explores the scientific usefulness of data contributed by volunteer players of the games.

• Data quality in the two games is comparable, and is good enough to be used for scientific purposes.

• Games can be valuable for motivating participation; different types of games motivate different kinds of participants.

• Some games encourage play behaviors (e.g. cheating) that should be controlled for.

摘要

•Two citizen science games are compared, one points-based and one story-based.•The study explores the scientific usefulness of data contributed by volunteer players of the games.•Data quality in the two games is comparable, and is good enough to be used for scientific purposes.•Games can be valuable for motivating participation; different types of games motivate different kinds of participants.•Some games encourage play behaviors (e.g. cheating) that should be controlled for.

论文关键词:Games,Gamification,Crowdsourcing,Citizen science,Data quality

论文评审过程:Received 25 August 2016, Revised 18 November 2016, Accepted 20 November 2016, Available online 26 November 2016, Version of Record 26 November 2016.

论文官网地址:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.11.035