Online taxonomy: Why do people engage?

Online taxonomy: Why do people engage? Daphne Duin*, David Self, Simon Rycroft, Dave Roberts & Vincent Smith EDIT stakeholder liaison officer * EDIT General Meeting December 16, 2009

Overview Online taxonomy and why people engage. The example of the Scratchpads Users of technology and innovations Scratchpads Results survey Summary / further research

Introduction “ You can't just ask customers what they want and then try and give it to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new. ” (Steve Jobs, Apple Inc., in The Guardian 25 June 09) Users studies and observed attitudes among technology designers “ [designers attitudes can be summarised as…] there is no point asking users what they want because they themselves don’t know ” (Steve Woolgar, 1991) “ User-centered innovation processes offer great advantages over the manufacturer-centered innovation developments systems (…)” (Eric von Hippel, 2005)

Introduction “ Scratchpad users are also our developers ” (Vince Smith, 2009) The Scratchpad project and users User-innovators are willing to engage because (cf. Von Hippel): They are looking for exactly the right product They have relative small user community with heterogeneous needs Their technologies require a great deal of user context information To avoid agency costs For the enjoyment and learning of innovating Contributes to long term sustainability of the product

What is a Scratchpad? A website for you & your community Your data 1 Published & reviewed on your site 3 Uploaded & tagged 2

Scratchpads: an ecosystem of communities http://scratchpads.eu/ Ants Bees Beetles Big-headed flies Blackflies Ciliates Cockroaches Dragon Trees Dung Beetles False Buttonweed Flat worms Holometabola Leaf-miner Flies Lice Lichens of Bermuda Malvaceae Megalastrum ferns Milichiid flies Mosquitoes Mosses Nannotax fossils Nepticuloid moths Palms Polychaete worms

Current Scratchpad users Sites 114 (July 09) (now 130+) Pages 170K Users approx. 1500+ Maintainers 99 + Maintainers institution: EDIT 48% Non EDIT 48% Don’t know 3% Women 28 % Men 71 %

SURVEY : introduction To capture user needs To improve users (social) engagement and sense of ownership with the project To increase the usage and utility of the Scratchpads as a research platform for natural history researchers To identify the technical and social barriers to adoption Results will be used to: Guide development of the Scratchpads and associated tools Identify policy, institutional & infrastructural issues Identify the sociological implications of new technologies Why a survey? Who is behind the survey? A team effort

SURVEY: introduction Survey questions provide: Insight into the “profile” of Scratchpad users Understand their motivation to engage with the project Understand the impact of the Scratchpads for users Understand the barriers of use Provide a user perspective on the biodiversity informatics landscape

SURVEY: methodology Participants in survey: site maintainers / initiators Semi-structured interviews by a trained sociologist Mixture of open and closed questions Number interviewed Scratchpad maintainers 46 Number of sites 60

SURVEY: the users (1) Population vs respondents Subjects sites Age Country Position

Uses other virtual research tools 81% Of which Use them on a daily basis 91% Of which Collaborate by using these tools with > 10 people 50% Estimate community size (off line) 74% > 2 SURVEY : the users (2)

SURVEY: the users (3) What we know about the respondents

SURVEY: the users (4) Plans to continue to use site in future: 93% Contribute to other people’s SP: 83% (no) vs 18% (yes) Different roles in Scratchpad community: 87% carry out admin. work

SURVEY : the users (5) How they heard about the Scratchpads

SURVEY: motivation (1) Why they signed-up

SURVEY: motivation (2) Quotes from interviews: (…) “ needed a facility to enable taxonomists to come together and discuss before work has been formalised ” “ Always had an intention to make work available to a wider audience then just research collaborators ” “ Looking for a place on the web to store morphological characters on. Tried using morphbank but it didn't work out ” “ Mostly to see what the Scratchpad system was like. To see advantages and disadvantages for expert databases ” “ Like to apply for money from EDIT. Best way to get funded is to get electronic access for all material, e.g. Scratchpad ” Why they signed-up

SURVEY : impact (2) Actual uses of sites

SURVEY: impact (2) Actual uses of sites

SURVEY: impact (3) According to users Scratchpad(s) help them …

Do people collaborate? NB: 60 sites from the sample are managed by 46 people The 30 sites with active members are managed by 24 people SURVEY: impact (4)

Maintainers level of acquaintance with active members at start SURVEY: impact (5)

SURVEY: impact (6) Publishing work in progress

SURVEY: impact (7) 67% of the respondents publish work in progress (on closed, member areas or publicly) with the following motivations: [Some examples] To make data available to students To collectively work on species descriptions To identify research gaps, like info. on undescribed species To get input from people before publication To work collectively on interactive key’s that need constant updating To increase visibility of work/project So others can edit raw data 22 participants do this publicly !

SURVEY: barriers (1) Barriers to publishing work in progress 24% of the respondents said they are not publishing work in progress because: Problems setting up a private area on their site Feel uncomfortable to sharing untested hypotheses Information on the site are books chapters waiting to get published (copyright restrictions?)

SURVEY: barriers (2) Barriers to creating an online community “ Protecting the data from misuse. There is a problem of getting people involved due to intellectual property rights and copyright (i.e. with images)”. “ [my] site needs to be perfect before inviting others” “ Too few people with the same level of interest” Some examples:

SURVEY: barriers (3) Barriers to achieving initial goals 22 respondents said their site(s) are not achieving the all goals they had set because…

SURVEY: barriers (4) Barrier “lack of time”, perhaps related to lack of…?

Why users engage and how According to the respondents: “ They are willing to engage because they know someone who uses them” “ The Scratchpads offer specific benefits for specific problems in collaboration (community building), communication, because of impact, because of technical accessibility, features for data management” Scratchpads offer multiple ways to engage: As a visitor (active or passive user) As a “ community of one ” (for self publishing) As a community member (either active or passive) As an active site maintainer / leader SURVEY: summary (1)

Surprised by… “ Respondents are publishing “work in progress” on their site(s) because they see multiple benefits doing this”. SURVEY: summary (2)

Further research Possible questions Is their institutional support for users who take up new technologies? Will this make difference for users? Getting research communities involved: What are the factors leading to successful and active collaboration? Can we use knowledge in offline successful research communities and translate this to an online setting? What are the views and practices on publishing work in progress within the taxonomic community? Use alternative methodologies that are better equipped for analysing social barriers (experimental setting; ethnographic studies etc.)

With thanks to... All the survey participants Christine Hine (Dept. of Sociology, Univ. of Surrey)

Online taxonomy: Why do people engage?

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