SoCS: Biotracker - Melding Human and Machine Intelligence to Create Large-scale Collaborative Systems

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IntroductionThis project will make use of a novel system that will serve to accelerate the documentation of millions of currently unknown species. It will involve the use of mobile phones and the internet, which together make it feasible for thousands (if not millions) of people to collaborate on large-scale projects of tremendous social importance. In this project, data on biodiversity will be collected by citizen-scientists using mobile phones. There are approximately two million known species of organisms in the world and potentially millions more are still undocumented. Without help, professional biologists will be unable to faithfully record many of these species before they disappear from the planet. Intellectual MeritThe research goal of this project is to develop and test evolving theories for designing socially intelligent systems in which enthusiasts (usually referred to as "citizen-scientists") and scientist?s partner with technology to collect and process the data needed for large scale observation-driven science. This study will extend existing work by examining motivations of expert scientists and novice enthusiasts partnered with computing technologies in a scientific domain; developing and testing novel theory-inspired strategies for motivating participants; and beginning to develop a meta-theory that characterizes the interplay between potentially competing motivational strategies or "design levers" in the same socially intelligent system.Potential Broader ImpactsInventorying and compiling basic descriptions of a fraction of the world's species is a huge task that cannot be accomplished by trained scientists alone. This project will help enlist the public to accomplish this task. The Encyclopedia of Life project will employ the techniques that are developed in this project for use by other volunteers to obtain additional information about species around the globe.