Helping Hands: Computer Support for Community-Maintained Artifacts of Lasting Value

伸出援手：为社区维护的具有持久价值的文物提供计算机支持

• 批准号: 0534420
• 负责人: John Riedl
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-11-01 至 2009-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0534420&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Helping; Hands; Computer; Support; Community

This project explores the nature of computer systems to support the building of high-quality community-maintained artifacts of lasting value (CALVs). CALVs are distinguished from ephemeral activities of communities through three key properties: (1) The community must be focused around a valuable persistent computer artifact; (2) the artifact must be maintained over time; and (3) the quality of the artifact must be important to the community. The artifact must be valued by its maintaining community; it may in addition also be of value to a larger community who does not participate in maintenance. CALVs are of special importance on the Internet because they represent powerful free resources that can be created by volunteer communities. They have the potential to revolutionize access to many types of information, opening free access to millions of people. In much the same way that open source software frees software, CALVs free repositories of information.But, just as most open source software projects fail, most CALVs fail. Their creators get busy or bored, and they fail to attract a community that is interested enough to do the essential work of maintaining the artifact for future users. In many cases, failure may be appropriate. Perhaps the artifact just is not valuable enough to be worth maintaining. In many other cases, however, important resources are lost because a community disbands through disillusionment, conflict, or ineffective organization. This project is an investigation of principles and computer tools that embody those principles to improve the success rate for valuable CALVs, making it possible for people everywhere to create and maintain valuable resources on the Internet.This project seeks tools in three areas: (1) Eliciting Valuable Contributions. Computer tools to help users find work a) they are able to do, b) will find interesting, and c) that will develop the artifact in ways that are valuable to the community. (2) Maintaining the Health of the CALV and its Community. Computer tools to measure the local and global health of the CALV to help users make decisions that are in the best interests of the community. (3) Providing Value to Community Members. Recommender tools to help a user find specific items he or she values from among the many parts of a CALV.This research will involve three communities: MovieLens, a distributed, anonymous, recreational community of thousands of active members; Galactic Gopher, a geographically co-located, pseudonymous, small graduate student community; and the Bioethics of Stem Cell Research repository, a distributed, identified, professional and academic community. For each of these communities the project will develop computer tools that embody the best practices for enhancing the ability of the community to maintain its artifact without external support. In each of these communities, researchers will conduct controlled, random-assignment experiments with subgroups of the community and develop tools to computationally assess the overall health of the community, and the contribution of each member.This project will develop principles to enable people to create and maintain valuable CALVs for communities that can use them. Based on the principles, the project will develop practical computer tools for CALVs. These computer tools will be created under open source licenses and distributed to people who wish to use them everywhere. To increase the impact, the research will: (1) work with multiple communities (MovieLens, Galactic Gopher, Bioethics) to apply the principles; (2) work with communities independent of the research group on pressing problems of society (the bioethics of stem cell research); and (3) develop a cadre of graduate students with research experience, interest and ability in strengthening Community-maintained Artifacts of Lasting Value.

该项目探索计算机系统的性质，以支持建立高质量的社区维护的具有持久价值的文物(CALV)。CALV区别于社区的短暂活动有三个关键属性：(1)社区必须关注有价值的持久计算机人工制品；(2)人工制品必须随着时间的推移进行维护；以及(3)人工制品的质量必须对社区很重要。人工制品必须受到维护社区的重视；此外，它还可能对不参与维护的更大社区有价值。CALV在互联网上特别重要，因为它们代表着强大的免费资源，可以由志愿者社区创建。它们有可能彻底改变人们对多种类型信息的获取方式，向数百万人开放免费获取方式。就像开源软件释放软件一样，CALV也是免费的信息仓库。但是，就像大多数开源软件项目失败一样，大多数CALV也失败了。他们的创建者变得忙碌或无聊，他们无法吸引足够感兴趣的社区来为未来的用户维护构件的基本工作。在许多情况下，失败可能是适当的。也许这件文物就是不够值钱，不值得维护。然而，在许多其他情况下，由于一个社区因幻想破灭、冲突或组织不力而瓦解，重要的资源就会损失。这个项目是对体现这些原则的原则和计算机工具的调查，以提高有价值的CALV的成功率，使世界各地的人们能够在互联网上创造和维护有价值的资源。这个项目在三个方面寻找工具：(1)获得有价值的贡献。帮助用户找到工作的计算机工具a)他们能够做的工作，b)将发现有趣的工作，以及c)将以对社区有价值的方式开发人工制品。(2)维护家禽及其社区的健康。衡量本地和全球CALV健康状况的计算机工具，以帮助用户做出符合社区最佳利益的决定。(3)为社区成员提供价值。这项研究将涉及三个社区：MovieLens，一个由数千名活跃成员组成的分布式、匿名、娱乐社区；Galaxy Gopher，一个地理位置相同、化名的小型研究生社区；以及干细胞研究库的生物伦理学，一个分布式、可识别、专业和学术的社区。对于每个社区，该项目将开发包含最佳做法的计算机工具，以加强社区在没有外部支持的情况下维护其人工制品的能力。在每个社区中，研究人员将对社区的子组进行受控的随机分配实验，并开发工具来计算评估社区的整体健康状况，以及每个成员的贡献。这个项目将制定原则，使人们能够为可以使用它们的社区创建和维护有价值的CALV。根据这些原则，该项目将为CALV开发实用的计算机工具。这些计算机工具将在开源许可下创建，并分发给希望在任何地方使用它们的人。为了扩大影响，研究将：(1)与多个社区(电影镜头、银河地鼠、生物伦理学)合作，应用这些原则；(2)与独立于社会紧迫问题研究小组(干细胞研究的生物伦理学)的社区合作；(3)培养一支具有研究经验、兴趣和能力的研究生队伍，以加强社区维护的具有持久价值的文物。