Free as in puppies: compensating for ict constraints in citizen science
Abstract
Citizen science is a form of collaborative research engaging the public with professional scientists. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are a leading factor in the recent spread of this phenomenon. A common assumption is that money and ICT are the ideal solutions to issues of data quality and participant engagement. The reality is instead that resource limitations often require adopting suboptimal ICT, including tools that are "free as in puppies" with hidden costs from poor usability and lack of appropriate functionality.
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- Authors
- Wiggins, A.
- Affiliations
- University of New Mexico (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wiggins, Andrea
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2013-02-23
- Pages
- 1469-1480
- OpenAlex
- W2078207801
- Cited by
- 44
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 3.29
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Open Source Software Innovations
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Mobile Crowdsensing and Crowdsourcing
- Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Geographic Information Systems Studies
- Keywords
- citizen science, free software, open source software, information and communication technologies, data quality, participant engagement, usability, resource constraints, research collaboration
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