Collaborative Research: EAGER: Zoo-based Network Science Experimentation and Modeling

支持网络的设备的普及性和移动性改变了人们与应用程序交互的方式，也改变了我们彼此交互的方式。移动设备和应用程序有可能为用户提供大量特定于上下文的资源，收集关于用户及其环境的丰富信息，并使用户成为信息源。这些系统具有在社会相关领域发挥更大作用的巨大潜力，但需要更深入地了解用户、环境、应用程序和网络之间的相互作用，才能实现解决大规模问题的潜力。在我们前进的过程中，重要的是要考虑整个系统，包括用户。这项研究的目的是通过创建、建模和分析芝加哥动物学会的一个特定系统-S布鲁克菲尔德动物园-来促进对基于网络的社会技术系统的理解。动物园可以被视为一个丰富的社会系统，包括工作人员、动物和每年超过200万游客的多样化群体。该项目创建了一个社会技术系统，通过引入技术来研究，目的是通过观察和报告动物行为来吸引参观者成为公民科学家，并允许任何人与研究人员收集的动物观察数据进行互动。社交网络应用将被用来分享动物观察，并明确地使动物成为在线社交网络的一部分。该项目的学术价值包括将网络作为一种使能技术和理解动物园利益攸关方之间关系的模型进行跨学科研究。通过创建一个统一的社会技术框架来考虑利益相关者和技术之间的关系并对其进行建模，人们可以探索许多研究问题。这项研究将有助于更深入地了解影响社交网络信息传输的因素。它将允许考虑可能刺激网络活动的信息类型，并促进认知系统适应环境以优化用户结果。我们将能够确定来自不同来源(如科学家、客人、教育工作者)的信息如何影响网络的活动和通过网络传输特定消息。本工作还将演示在网络中扮演完全不同角色的个人(动物、应用程序设计人员和应用程序用户)如何影响网络结果。这个项目的更广泛的影响包括动物园引入的软件应用、研究成果和接触到该项目的学生。不同社会经济背景的人以及许多学校团体和其他组织都会参观布鲁克菲尔德动物园。国家研究委员会(NRC，2009)得出结论，非正式学习环境(如动物园)可以对代表性不足群体的科学学习结果产生重大影响。这里提出的工作将是确定技术在这一学习中的新角色的根本。更直接的是，它还可以鼓励不同的动物园游客追求对动物园动物的兴趣，或许还可以成为一名公民科学家，报告观察并调查收集的数据。更多地了解设计与技术工程和社会成果之间的联系，可以使我们能够最好地利用技术来解决重要的社会问题。如果有可能利用综合的综合信息(社会和技术)，并且目标是增加信息的传递和理解，这项工作将成为优化资源分配的模式。此外，不同的学生群体将通过这个项目参与和培训。私人投资机构有与代表性不足的群体合作的记录，并将利用这一项目作为一个平台，让更多的妇女和少数群体参与进来。

The pervasiveness and mobility of network-enabled devices has changed the way people interact with applications and it has also changed the way we interact with each other. Mobile devices and applications have the potential to provide users with a multitude of context-specific resources, collect a wealth of information about users and their environments, and enable users to become information sources. These systems have great potential to play an increased role in socially relevant domains, but a deeper understanding of the interactions between users, environments, applications and networks, is necessary to realize the potential to address large-scale problems. As we move forward it is critical to consider the entire system including the users. The goal of this research is to advance the understanding of network-based socio-technical systems by creating, modeling and analyzing a specific system based at the Chicago Zoological Society?s Brookfield Zoo. The Zoo can be viewed as a rich social system including staff, animals and a diverse group of over two million visitors per year. This project creates a socio-technical system to study by introducing technology with the purpose of enticing visitors to become citizen scientists by observing and reporting animal behavior, and allowing anyone to interact with the animal observation data collected by researchers. Social networking applications will be used to share animal observations and to explicitly make the animals part of the online social network. The Intellectual Merit of this project involves the interdisciplinary study of networks as an enabling technology and as a model for understanding the relationships between stakeholders at the Zoo. By creating a unified socio-technical framework to consider and model the relationships between the stakeholders and technology, one can explore many research issues. The research will aid in gaining a deeper understanding of the factors that influence information transfer across social networks. It will allow consideration of the types of information that are likely to stimulate network activity and facilitate a cognitive system that adapts to environment to optimize user outcomes. We will be able to ascertain how information from various sources (e.g. scientists, guests, educators) influences activity of the network and transmission of specific messages through the network. This work will also provide a demonstration of how individuals with fundamentally different roles in the network (animals, application designers, and application users) influence network outcomes. The Broader Impact of this project includes the software application introduced at the zoo, the research outcomes and the students exposed to the project. People of varied socio-economic backgrounds as well as many school groups and other organizations visit Brookfield Zoo. The National Research Council (NRC 2009) concludes that informal learning environments (e.g. Zoos) can have a significant impact on science learning outcomes for underrepresented groups. The work proposed here will be fundamental in determining a new role for technology in this learning. More immediately, it can also encourage a diverse audience of zoo visitors to pursue interests in the zoo animals and perhaps become a citizen scientist, reporting observations and investigating the data collected. Increased understanding of the connections between design and engineering of technology and social outcomes can empower us to best utilize technology to solve important social problems. This work will serve as a model for optimizing resource distribution when there is the potential to utilize comprehensive integrated information (social and technical) and the goal is to increase message transfer and understanding. Additionally, a diverse group of students will be involved and trained through this project. The PIs have a track record of working with underrepresented groups and will use this project as a platform to involve even more women and minorities.