Exploring Data Quality in Games With a Purpose

Abstract

A key problem for crowd-sourcing systems is motivating contributions from participants and ensuring the quality of these contributions. Games have been suggested as a motivational approach to encourage contribution, but attracting participation through game play rather than scientific interest raises concerns about the quality of the data provided, which is particularly important when the data are to be used for scientific research. To assess whether these concerns are justified, we compare the quality of data obtained from two citizen science games, one a "gamified" version of a species classification task and one a fantasy game that used the classification task only as a way to advance in the game play. Surprisingly, though we did observe cheating in the fantasy game, data quality (i.e., classification accuracy) from participants in the two games was not significantly different. As well, the quality of data from short-time contributors was at a usable level of accuracy. These findings suggest that various approaches to gamification can be useful for motivating contributions to citizen science projects.

Getting it Right or Being Top Rank: Games in Citizen Science

“…For example, the competitive structure of a computer game can potentially be seen to corrupt the quality of data as the motivation to win a game may be incompatible with the scientific pursuit of knowledge. Another risk is that players may focus on fun elements and ignore, neglect, or even cheat on embedded science tasks to get them over with quickly (Prestopnik et al 2014). In addition, with the advent of digital games in citizen science, tensions between gaming and science can be experienced in a variety of ways by amateur participants.…”

Performance of Players and Data Quality in a Citizen Science Casual Game

“…Research into the use of games in citizen science is relatively novel but expected to grow rapidly, as the number of games in this area increases. Empirical studies have started to document the role of games to support citizen engagement and sustained participation (e.g., [4], [5]) and effect on data quality [6] and [7]. A main concern in citizen science is to ensure data quality, especially the intrinsic quality of data -that is, the accuracy and believability of the data provided by citizens [6].…”

“…Empirical studies have started to document the role of games to support citizen engagement and sustained participation (e.g., [4], [5]) and effect on data quality [6] and [7]. A main concern in citizen science is to ensure data quality, especially the intrinsic quality of data -that is, the accuracy and believability of the data provided by citizens [6]. Reasons for this concern include participants' lack of formal scientific training and limited scientific knowledge, uneven levels of expertise and anonymity, as well as nonstandardized and poorly designed methods of data collection [8].…”

Mapping and the citizen sensor

“…Thus, keeping the volunteers' interest through fun activities seems to bear potential for a higher contribution rate. So-called 'gamification' for this purpose seems to show positive results; however, this is very much dependent on the project type and the volunteers and requires further research (Prestopnik et al, 2014). Immediate and continuous feedback of results in a visually attractive and easy to understand manner is also important.…”