Final project proposals are in! Questions about projects? - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Welcome back to [occ]! (Week 8) Online Communities & Crowds Welcome back to [occ]! (Week 8) 2014-11-12 Final project proposals are in! Welcome back to [occ]! (Week 8) Questions about projects? Assignments? Logistics? Final project proposals are in! Questions about projects? Assignments? Logistics? 1 / 15

Today’s Flight Plan: Online Communities & Crowds Today’s Flight Plan: 2014-11-12 ◮ Foundations: (human) computation. ◮ Dynamic: dividing labor; distributed information processing. Today’s Flight Plan: ◮ Cases: Mturk; Duolingo; Zooniverse (other examples from Zittrain talk). ◮ Challenge: ethics, exploitation, inclusion. ◮ Foundations: (human) computation. ◮ Dynamic: dividing labor; distributed information processing. ◮ Cases: Mturk; Duolingo; Zooniverse (other examples from Zittrain talk). ◮ Challenge: ethics, exploitation, inclusion. 2 / 15

Online Communities & Crowds 2014-11-12 human computation? human computation?

A definition: crowdsourcing Online Communities & Crowds A definition: crowdsourcing “Crowdsourcing is the performance of tasks online by 2014-11-12 distributed groups of individuals who may or may not be financially compensated by the individuals, groups, or organizations designing and requesting the completion of the tasks.” A definition: crowdsourcing Source: Aniket Kittur, Jeffrey V. Nickerson, Michael Bernstein, Elizabeth Gerber, Aaron Shaw, John Zimmerman, Matt Lease, and John Horton. 2013. “The Future of Crowd Work.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work . “Crowdsourcing is the performance of tasks online by distributed groups of individuals who may or may not be financially compensated by the individuals, groups, or organizations designing and requesting the completion of the tasks.” Source: Aniket Kittur, Jeffrey V. Nickerson, Michael Bernstein, Elizabeth Gerber, Aaron Shaw, John Zimmerman, Matt Lease, and John Horton. 2013. “The Future of Crowd Work.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work . 4 / 15

Overlapping terms Online Communities & Crowds Overlapping terms 2014-11-12 ◮ human computation ◮ citizen science ◮ microtasks Overlapping terms ◮ crowd work ◮ ubiquitous human computing ◮ and more... ◮ human computation ◮ citizen science ◮ microtasks ◮ crowd work ◮ ubiquitous human computing ◮ and more... 5 / 15

France, 1758 Online Communities & Crowds France, 1758 2014-11-12 France, 1758 Three astronomers calculate the “perihelion” of Halley’s comet by hand. They were off by 1 month. Complex system of taking large calculations, breaking them up into littler and littler ones, combining and error-checking results to produce final, high-quality result. 6 / 15

A few centuries later... Online Communities & Crowds A few centuries later... 2014-11-12 A few centuries later... Human computers become the state of the art way to solve large math problems! This is a group working on constructing ballistics tables during World War I (I think). This was a popular application for human computers. See “When Computers Were Human” by David Alan Grier (not the comedian) for a wonderful history of this. 7 / 15

A few centuries later... Online Communities & Crowds A few centuries later... 2014-11-12 A few centuries later... 8 / 15

A few centuries later... Online Communities & Crowds A few centuries later... 2014-11-12 A few centuries later... 9 / 15

And then... Online Communities & Crowds And then... 2014-11-12 And then... Eventually, electronic computers replaced the humans. But, as you can see, women were still usually the people programming the computers (Grace Hopper). This changed later, but it’s interesting. Now, digital computers perform wrote, repetitive mathematical tasks. We expect this to be true. We resent it when it’s not. 10 / 15

But sometimes computers are still human! Online Communities & Crowds But sometimes computers are still human! 2014-11-12 But sometimes computers are still human! 11 / 15

Quick detour: Amazon’s Mechanical Turk Online Communities & Crowds Quick detour: Amazon’s Mechanical Turk 2014-11-12 http://mturk.com Quick detour: Amazon’s Mechanical Turk http://mturk.com 12 / 15

Online Communities & Crowds 2014-11-12 Zittrain’s “pyramid of human computation” diagram the pyramid. • How do the examples work? Zittrain’s “pyramid of human computation” • Is this an effective mapping of this domain?

“East coast” pessimism vs “West coast” optimism Online Communities & Crowds “East coast” pessimism vs “West coast” optimism 2014-11-12 “East coast” pessimism vs “West coast” optimism • What is the (optimistic) potential? • What are the key concerns? (individual level & systemic level) • What is to be done? 14 / 15

For Friday: Online Communities & Crowds For Friday: 2014-11-12 ◮ Finish reviewing, commenting on, and copy editing, other group’s Wikipedia articles (WP Task 5). ◮ Come prepared to work on finalizing your articles with your group. For Friday: ◮ Begin working on Wikipedia task write-up (see WP Task 6). ◮ Finish reviewing, commenting on, and copy editing, other group’s Wikipedia articles (WP Task 5). ◮ Come prepared to work on finalizing your articles with your group. ◮ Begin working on Wikipedia task write-up (see WP Task 6). 15 / 15