Competing or aiming to be average?: normification as a means of engaging digital volunteers

By C. Preist, Elaine Massung, David Coyle. 2014

87 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Engagement, motivation and active contribution by digital volunteers are key requirements for crowdsourcing and citizen science projects. Many systems use competitive elements, for example point scoring and leaderboards, to achieve these ends. However, while competition may motivate some people, it can have a neutral or demotivating effect on others. In this paper we explore theories of personal and social norms and investigate normification as an alternative approach to engagement, to be used alongside or instead of competitive strategies. We provide a systematic review of existing crowdsourcing and citizen science literature and categorise the ways that theories of norms have been incorporated to date. We then present qualitative interview data from a pro-environmental crowdsourcing study, Close the Door, which reveals normalising attitudes in certain participants. We assess how this links with competitive behaviour and participant performance. Based on our findings and analysis of norm theories, we consider the implications for designers wishing to use normification as an engagement strategy in crowdsourcing and citizen science systems.

Subfields: Computer Science Applications, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

1. Jim Lumsden
2. Elizabeth A Edwards
3. Natalia S. Lawrence
4. David Coyle
5. Marcus Munafò

Citations in the corpus

• Gamification of Cognitive Assessment and Cognitive Training: A Systematic Review of Applications and Efficacy (2016, background): “Furthermore, despite concerns that some commonly used game mechanics might reduce participant motivation [72] (such as by having a visibly low score [73]), we saw no evidence that this was the case.”