CAREER: Individual Attributes and Social Participation: Designing for Citizen Science

该项目寻求通过以人类为中心的计算等同于基因靶向医学来改变技术中介的社会参与的研究。就像医学的进步使我们能够使用关于一个人的基因特征的信息来针对他的需求进行医疗一样，关于用户的个人属性的信息，如他的动机和个性特征，可以被用来针对个人定制、理论驱动的设计，旨在增加用户对技术中介的社会努力的参与。研究的重点是技术中介的公民科学，它为研究在许多其他领域都很重要的问题提供了一个理想的实验室。该项目将涉及三种公民科学模式：分布式分析、分布式数据收集和志愿者计算。该研究将检验社会心理学理论和人机交互研究提供的设计特征的有效性，并对个性化定制设计形成严格的理论理解。该项目旨在推进以人为中心的计算理论和实践。因此，这项研究的学术价值包括：1)通过建立一个将个人属性和设计相结合的理论框架来推进技术中介的社会参与理论；2)开发和实证测试一种新的技术和具体的设计指南，以增强技术中介的社会参与，并将其应用于公民科学项目。这项研究在公民科学领域的独特背景承诺为社会和科学带来长期利益。特别是，这项研究的更广泛影响包括：1)利用技术中介的社会参与和公民科学，让公众参与科学和科学工作，特别是弱势社区的成员，否则传统的与科学有关的活动可能无法进入；2)通过有效的公民科学加强科学研究的基础设施；以及3)将技术中介的公民科学纳入外联计划。

This project seeks to transform the study of technology-mediated social participation through the human-centered computing equivalent of genetically targeted medicine. Just as advances in medicine enable us to use information about a person's genetic profile to target medical treatment to his needs, information about a user's personal attributes such as his motivations and personality traits can be used to target individually-tailored, theory-driven design aimed at increasing the user's participation in technology-mediated social efforts. The research focus is on technology-mediated citizen science, which offers an ideal laboratory for studying issues that are important in many other fields. The project will involve three citizen science modalities: distributed analysis, distributed data gathering, and volunteer computing. The research will test the effectiveness of design features informed by social psychology theory and human-computer interaction research, and develop a rigorous theoretical understanding of individually-tailored design.The project seeks to advance human-centered computing theory and practice. The intellectual merits of the research therefore include: 1) advancing technology-mediated social participation theory by developing a theoretical framework that combines personal attributes and design; 2) developing and testing empirically a novel technique and specific design guidelines to enhance technology-mediated social participation, with application to citizen science projects.The unique setting of this research within the citizen science domain promises long-term benefits to society and science. In particular, the broader impacts of the research include: 1) leveraging technology-mediated social participation and citizen science to engage members of the public in science and scientific work, and in particular, members of disadvantaged communities to whom traditional science-related activities may otherwise not be accessible; 2) enhancing the infrastructure for scientific research through effective citizen science; and 3) integrating technology-mediated citizen science in outreach programs.