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

OverviewOnline 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

Your data1

Published & reviewedon your site

3Uploaded &

tagged

2

What is a Scratchpad?A website for you & your community

AntsBeesBeetlesBig-headed flies

BlackfliesCiliatesCockroachesDragon TreesDung BeetlesFalse ButtonweedFlat worms

HolometabolaLeaf-miner FliesLiceLichens of BermudaMalvaceaeMegalastrum fernsMilichiid fliesMosquitoesMossesNannotax fossilsNepticuloid mothsPalms

Polychaete worms

Scratchpads: an ecosystem of communities

http://scratchpads.eu/

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 %

Current Scratchpad users

Countries maintainers are based(tot pop, J uly 2009)

United Kingdom; 38

United States of America; 21

France; 5

Germany; 5

Berlgium; 3

Sweden; 2

Australia; 2Switzerland; 2

The Netherlands; 2Denmark; 2

Canada; 5

Vietnam; 1

Slovakia; 1

Cotsa Rica; 1

Argentina; 1

Greece; 1

Brazil; 1

India; 1

Italy; 1

La Réunion; 1

Macedonia; 1

Taiwan; 1

Finland; 1

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

97%

88%

76%

68%

50%

50%

38%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Personal communication

Peer reviewed journals

Conference presentation

Conference proceedings

Monographs

Email lists (outside institution)

Wiki’s and Blogs

Most important communication channels to disseminate work

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

22%

56%

66%

80%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

(Active) when itcomes to involving

(new) people

(Active) in editingother peoples or your

own content

An (active) contributorwhen it comes to

technical maintenance

(Active) contributorwhen it comes adding

new content

Contributions to site

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

How the word spread

67%

20%

7%

7%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Brought to attention bysomeone from theScratchpad team

Came across bycoincidence

While searching onlinefor a data solution

Recommended by aScratchpad user

SURVEY: motivation (1) Why they signed-up

Motivation to register

24%

2%

20%

37%

17%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Needed a tool forcollaborative work

pratices

Needed acommunication tool

Out of bioinformaticinterest

For datamanagementpuposes

Other

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”

SURVEY: motivation (2) Why they signed-up

SURVEY: impact (1)

7%

17%

64%

12%

5%

12%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Built into grant publications

Meetings

Publications

Evidence that site has inspired others/otherproducts

Presentations

There were no spin offs (yet)

Scratchpad spin-offs

SURVEY: impact (2) Actual uses of sites

33%

40%

7%

17%

67%

62%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

For communicatingreseach

Individual data archiving

Individual blog

For data sharing

As shared bibliographicreference tool

Group blog or notebook

Uses of site

33%

40%

7%

17%

67%

62%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

For communicatingreseach

Individual data archiving

Individual blog

For data sharing

As shared bibliographicreference tool

Group blog or notebook

Uses of site

SURVEY: impact (2) Actual uses of sites

33%

40%

7%

17%

67%

62%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

For communicatingreseach

Individual data archiving

Individual blog

For data sharing

As shared bibliographicreference tool

Group blog or notebook

Uses of site

SURVEY: impact (2) Actual uses of sites

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

26%

10%

38%

7%

12%

64%

21%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

To communicate research

To learn about otherpeople and their work

Technical advantages(data presentation/use)

To communicate personalopinions on field of work

To archive/organize datafor personal use

To distance work withothers

To meet new people

Benefits of Scratchpads

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

26%

10%

38%

7%

12%

64%

21%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

To communicate research

To learn about otherpeople and their work

Technical advantages(data presentation/use)

To communicate personalopinions on field of work

To archive/organize datafor personal use

To distance work withothers

To meet new people

Benefits of Scratchpads

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

26%

10%

38%

7%

12%

64%

21%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

To communicate research

To learn about otherpeople and their work

Technical advantages(data presentation/use)

To communicate personalopinions on field of work

To archive/organize datafor personal use

To distance work withothers

To meet new people

Benefits of Scratchpads

Do people collaborate?

NB: 60 sites from the sample are managed by 46 peopleThe 30 sites with active members are managed by 24 people

SURVEY: impact (4)

Number of active members per siten=number of sites

28

2

30

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

0 1 to10 10 >

Do people collaborate?

NB: 60 sites from the sample are managed by 46 peopleThe 30 sites with active members are managed by 24 people

Number of active members per siten=number of sites

28

2

30

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

0 1 to10 10 >

SURVEY: impact (4)

Maintainers level of acquaintance with active members at start

SURVEY: impact (5)

8%

38%

63%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Know by name only

Met before

Work together

Maintainers level of acquaintness with active members

SURVEY: impact (6) Publishing work in progress

No

Yes No, but I intend to in the future

67%

Published work in progress publicly or on member section

10%

24%

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

SURVEY: impact (7)

22 participants do this publicly !

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 (1)

Barriers to creating an online community

SURVEY: barriers (2)

“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…

82%

45%

23%

9%

5%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Lack of time tomaintain the site(s)

Lack of time todevelop the

necessary skills

Lack of generalcomputer literacy

Don't know how tomotivate my

community to join in

Concerns that mydata wil be misused

Barrieres to achieve goals set

Barrier “lack of time”, perhaps related to lack of…?

Technical support

Yes, 26%

Don't know, 9%

No, 65%

Yes, 32%

No, 68%

Part of job evaluation

SURVEY: barriers (4)

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)

SURVEY: summary (3)

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.)

Further research

With thanks to...

• All the survey participants

• Christine Hine (Dept. of Sociology, Univ. of Surrey)

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