VOSS: Theory and design of virtual organizations for citizen science

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)提供资金的。该项目是对虚拟组织的两个阶段的基于理论的研究，虚拟组织使科学研究中的大规模虚拟协作成为可能。将被研究的虚拟组织的核心是科学家和项目负责人，他们协调更多志愿贡献者的工作，这种形式有时被称为公民科学。该项目旨在促进人们了解什么是有效的公民科学虚拟组织，以及在什么条件下公民科学虚拟组织能够促进和加强科学和教育的生产和创新。这项研究在理论上以小群体理论为基础，并以对公民科学项目的调查和案例研究为经验基础。这项调查将被用来制定公民科学项目的类型，从而阐明这种形式的重要维度。案例研究将确定工作设计中的关键杠杆点，使公民科学虚拟组织能够让分散的、多样化的志愿者以组织可持续的方式参与生产大规模、高质量、有价值的科学研究。这项研究的结果将在一个研讨会上与公民科学从业者分享和验证。这项研究的更广泛的重要性是，它将表明在科学研究中使用公民科学的机会，这可能导致公民科学在科学和工程研究和教育的其他领域得到新的实施。成果将帮助科学家和项目领导人确定适当的项目结构和最佳做法，以便在修订当前的公民科学项目或启动新的项目时采用。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This project is a two-phase theory-based study of virtual organizations that enable massive virtual collaboration in scientific research. The virtual organizations to be studied have a core of scientists and project leaders coordinating the work of a larger number of volunteer contributors, a format sometimes called citizen science. The project is directed at advancing the understanding of what constitutes effective citizen science virtual organizations and under what conditions citizen science virtual organizations can enable and enhance scientific and education production and innovation. The study is theoretically grounded in small group theory and rooted empirically in a survey of and case studies in citizen science projects. The survey will be used to develop a typology of citizen science projects, thus illuminating the important dimensions of this form. The case studies will identify key lever points in work design for enabling citizen science virtual organizations to involve distributed, diverse volunteers in producing large-scale, high quality, valued scientific research in an organizationally sustainable fashion. Findings from the study will be shared and validated with citizen science practitioners in a workshop. The broader importance of the research is that it will indicate opportunities for employing citizen science in scientific research, which could lead to novel implementations of citizen science in other areas of scientific and engineering research and education. Results will aid scientists and project leaders in identifying appropriate project structures and best practices to employ when revising current citizen science projects or launching new ones.