HCC: Large: Collaborative Research: Design Principles for Information Networks Supporting the Social Production of Knowledge

该项目旨在开发社会计算应用程序的设计原则，在这些应用程序中，知识是由大型、松散协调的人群产生的。这项研究将由一个跨学科团队进行，该团队汇集了计算机和信息科学与社会科学的专业知识；所有这些领域的观点对于在因特网上开发下一代大规模协作信息系统将是至关重要的。研究的一个特别重点将是在这些环境中影响信息和讨论质量的现象，包括欺骗和导致两极分化的各种意见动态。这项研究将为理解这些现象提供新的分析技术和计算模型，利用涉及社会互动和社会网络活动的大规模数据集的新颖调查方式。在此基础上，该研究还将制定设计原则（基于智能任务路由和有目的的游戏的想法），使社会计算应用程序的创建者能够在复杂的潜在社会现象存在的情况下设计特定的结果。该项目的动机是知识产生和共享方式正在发生深刻的转变；特别是，它以一种“自下而上”的方式出现在全球社交网络中，这些网络在很大程度上是在线自我组织的。这就提出了深刻的挑战：当很大一部分美国人首先从互联网上获取政治、健康、商业和教育方面的信息时，公众和研究界对如何处理网上的欺骗和错误信息，或如何防止网上社区陷入冲突和两极分化，仍然知之甚少。通过对设计原则和这些挑战的关注，该项目将尝试创造更有效的在线话语和知识生产手段。

The project seeks to develop design principles for social computing applications in which knowledge is produced by large, loosely coordinated groups of people. The research will be carried out by an inter-disciplinary team that brings together expertise from computing and information science with the social sciences; perspectives from all of these areas will be crucial to developing the next generation of large-scale collaborative information systems on the Internet. A particular focus of the research will be on phenomena that affect the quality of information and discussion in these settings, including deception and the kinds of opinion dynamics that lead to polarization. The research will offer new analysis techniques and computational models for understanding such phenomena, drawing on novel styles of investigation involving large-scale datasets of social interaction and social network activity. Building on this, the research will also formulate design principles (based on ideas from intelligent task routing and games with a purpose) to enable creators of social computing applications to design for particular outcomes in the presence of complex underlying social phenomena.The project is motivated by a profound transformation taking place in the way knowledge is produced and shared; in particular, the way it emerges in a "bottom-up" manner from global social networks that largely self-organize online. This raises profound challenges: at a time when a large proportion of Americans turn first to Internet sources for information about politics, health, commerce, and education, there is still very little understanding among the public as well as within the research community of how to deal with deception and misinformation online, or how to prevent online communities from falling into conflict and polarization. Through its focus on design principles and on these challenges, the project will attempt to create more effective means of online discourse and knowledge production.