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

该项目将利用一个新的系统，这将有助于加速数百万目前未知物种的记录。它将涉及到使用移动的电话和互联网，这两者结合起来，使成千上万（如果不是数百万）人在具有巨大社会重要性的大型项目上进行合作成为可能。在该项目中，公民科学家将使用移动的电话收集生物多样性数据。世界上大约有200万种已知的生物，可能还有数百万种尚未记录。如果没有帮助，专业生物学家将无法在这些物种从地球上消失之前忠实地记录它们。 这个项目的研究目标是开发和测试不断发展的理论，设计社会智能系统，其中爱好者（通常被称为“公民科学家”）和科学家？我们与技术合作，收集和处理大规模观测驱动的科学所需的数据。这项研究将扩展现有的工作，通过研究在科学领域与计算技术合作的专家科学家和新手爱好者的动机;开发和测试激励参与者的新理论启发的策略;并开始发展一种元理论，描述潜在竞争性激励策略或“设计杠杆”之间的相互作用。在同一个社会智能系统中。潜在的更广泛的影响清查和汇编世界上一小部分物种的基本描述是一项艰巨的任务，仅靠训练有素的科学家是无法完成的。这个项目将有助于争取公众来完成这项任务。“生命百科全书”项目将采用在该项目中开发的技术，供其他志愿人员使用，以获得有关地球仪各地物种的更多信息。

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.