Paper by Bruni, Luigino and Pelligra, Vittorio and Reggiani, Tommaso and Rizzolli, Matteo: “In mainstream business and economics, prizes such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom are understood as special types of incentives, with the peculiar features of being awarded in public, and of having largely symbolic value. Informed by both historical considerations and philosophical instances, our study defines fundamental theoretical differences between incentives and prizes. The conceptual factors highlighted by our analytical framework are then tested through a laboratory experiment. The experimental exercise aims to analyze how prizes and incentives impact actual individuals’ behavior differently. Our results show that both incentives (monetary and contingent) and prizes (non-monetary and discretional rewards) boost motivation to perform if awarded publicly, but only prizes crowd-in motivation promoting virtuous attitude….(More)”.
Crowdsourcing Research Questions? Leveraging the Crowd’s Experiential Knowledge for Problem Finding
Paper by Tiare-Maria Brasseur, Susanne Beck, Henry Sauermann, Marion Poetz: “Recently, both researchers and policy makers have become increasingly interested in involving the general public (i.e., the crowd) in the discovery of new science-based knowledge. There has been a boom of citizen science/crowd science projects (e.g., Foldit or Galaxy Zoo) and global policy aspirations for greater public engagement in science (e.g., Horizon Europe). At the same time, however, there are also criticisms or doubts about this approach. Science is complex and laypeople often do not have the appropriate knowledge base for scientific judgments, so they rely on specialized experts (i.e., scientists) (Scharrer, Rupieper, Stadtler & Bromme, 2017). Given these two perspectives, there is no consensus on what the crowd can do and what only researchers should do in scientific processes yet (Franzoni & Sauermann, 2014). Previous research demonstrates that crowds can be efficiently and effectively used in late stages of the scientific research process (i.e., data collection and analysis). We are interested in finding out what crowds can actually contribute to research processes that goes beyond data collection and analysis. Specifically, this paper aims at providing first empirical insights on how to leverage not only the sheer number of crowd contributors, but also their diversity in experience for early phases of the research process (i.e., problem finding). In an online and field experiment, we develop and test suitable mechanisms for facilitating the transfer of the crowd’s experience into scientific research questions. In doing so, we address the following two research questions: 1. What factors influence crowd contributors’ ability to generate research questions? 2. How do research questions generated by crowd members differ from research questions generated by scientists in terms of quality? There are strong claims about the significant potential of people with experiential knowledge, i.e., sticky problem knowledge derived from one’s own practical experience and practices (Collins & Evans, 2002), to enhance the novelty and relevance of scientific research (e.g., Pols, 2014). Previous evidence that crowds with experiential knowledge (e.g., users in Poetz & Schreier, 2012) or ?outsiders?/nonobvious individuals (Jeppesen & Lakhani, 2010) can outperform experts under certain conditions by having novel perspectives, support the assumption that the participation of non-scientists (i.e., crowd members) in scientific problem-finding might complement scientists’ lack of experiential knowledge. Furthermore, by bringing in exactly these new perspectives, they might help overcome problems of fixation/inflexibility in cognitive-search processes among scientists (Acar & van den Ende, 2016). Thus, crowd members with (higher levels of) experiential knowledge are expected to be superior in identifying very novel and out-of-the-box research problems with high practical relevance, as compared to scientists. However, there are clear reasons to be skeptical: despite their advantage to possess important experiential knowledge, the crowd lacks the scientific knowledge we assume to be required to formulate meaningful research questions. To study exactly how the transfer of crowd members’ experiential knowledge into science can be facilitated, we conducted two experimental studies in context of traumatology (i.e., research on accidental injuries). First, we conducted a large-scale online experiment (N=704) in collaboration with an international crowdsourcing platform to test the effect of two facilitating treatments on crowd members’ ability to formulate real research questions (study 1). We used a 2 (structuring knowledge/no structuring knowledge) x 2 (science knowledge/no science knowledge) between-subject experimental design. Second, we tested the same treatments in the field (study 2), i.e., in a crowdsourcing project in collaboration with LBG Open Innovation in Science Center. We invited patients, care takers and medical professionals (e.g., surgeons, physical therapists or nurses) concerned with accidental injuries to submit research questions using a customized online platform (https://tell-us.online/) to investigate the causal relationship between our treatments and different types and levels of experiential knowledge (N=118). An international jury of experts (i.e., journal editors in the field of traumatology) then assesses the quality of submitted questions (from the online and field experiment) along several quality dimensions (i.e., clarity, novelty, scientific impact, practical impact, feasibility) in an online evaluation process. To assess the net effect of our treatments, we further include a random sample of research questions obtained from early-stage research papers (i.e., conference papers) into the expert evaluation (blind to the source) and compare them with the baseline groups of our experiments. We are currently finalizing the data collection…(More)”.
Living Labs As A Collaborative Framework For Changing Perceptions And Goals
Co-Val: “In the… ‘Report on cross-country comparison on existing innovation and living labs’, Lars Fuglsang and Anne Vorre Hansen from Roskilde University describe various applications of living labs to decision-making. The basic two examples are living labs as a collaborative framework for changing perceptions and goals and living labs as an ecosystem for policy innovation.
Living labs can involve a change in mindset and goals as expressed in one paper on public sector innovation labs (Carstensen & Bason, 2012). Carstensen and Bason (2012) report the important story of the Danish Mindlab (2002-2018) – a cross-governmental innovation lab involving public sector organisations, citizens and businesses in creating new solutions for society. They argue that innovation labs are designed to foster collaboration since labs are platforms where multiple stakeholders can engage in interaction, dialogue, and development activities. Innovation needs a different approach than everyday activities and a change in mindset and culture shift of employees towards thinking more systematically about innovation. Mindlab’s methodologies are anchored in design thinking, qualitative research and policy development, with the aim of capturing the subjective reality experienced by both citizens and businesses in the development of new solutions. Carstensen and Bason (2012) list the following key principles of Mindlab: take charge of on-going renewal, maintain top management backing, create professional empathy, insist on collaboration, do – don’t just think, recruit and develop likeable people, don’t be too big, communicate.
Also, Buhr et al. (2016) show how living labs can be important for developing and implementing collective goals and creating new opportunities for citizens to influence public affairs. They describe two cases in two suburban areas (located in Sweden and Finland), where the living lab approach was used to improve the feeling of belonging in a community. In one of the two suburbs studied, a living lab approach was used to change the lightning on a pathway that seemed unsafe; and in the other case, a living lab approach was used to strengthen the social community by renovating a kiosk and organizing varied activities for the citizens. Both living labs motivated the residents to work on societal goals for sustainability and choose solutions. The study indicates that a living lab approach can be used for gaining support for change and thereby increasing the citizens’ appreciation of a local area. Further, living labs may give citizens a feeling that they are being listened to. Living labs can thus create opportunities for citizens to develop the city together with municipal policy-makers and other stakeholders and enable policy-makers to respond to the expressed needs of the citizens….(More)”
Collab: A new digital tool for community participation
Sidewalk Labs: “The long-term success of a neighborhood is predicated on its community members feeling a sense of ownership and belonging — of believing that, together, they are the stewards of their community. But it’s increasingly rare for 21st century city residents to join in the shared project of shaping their neighborhoods. Stop to consider: when was the last time you attended a community meeting? Volunteered at a neighborhood charity? Called your local representative? For many of us, the answer is never.
While there are many reasons for this decline in civic participation, one contributing factor is transparency. It’s not always clear how input will be used or if the organizations charged with community decisions are able to receive and act on that feedback. Another factor is that people may not always feel they are sufficiently knowledgeable on certain issues to meaningfully contribute.
To help address these challenges, governments and companies around the world have begun building tools that leverage technology to make participation more informed, transparent, and relevant to people’s daily lives.
The City of Barcelona is at the forefront of this trend, having created Decidim, an open-source digital tool inspired by social media that keeps residents up to date on processes and garners their input (the tool has since spread globally). The City of Bologna recently launched an Office of Civic Imaginationdesigned specifically to build greater participation through regulation, engagement labs throughout the city, and digital tools. Startups are also getting into the mix, such as Neighborland, which offers a customizable platform for engagement between city planners and communities. And some communities have even started creating their own tools, such as YouthScore, which allows youth to rate their neighborhoods based on their youth friendliness.
These examples are part of a promising trajectory towards inclusive digital participation that could enable people to engage with and enhance the places where they live, work, and visit. We’re excited by the idea of a future where community members can easily influence the decisions, spaces, and technologies that impact them — and where decision-making entities can be even more responsive to community input.
Our hope is that these tools kickstart a virtuous cycle: the more community members feel empowered to shape their communities, the more they will participate. The more they participate, the more decision-makers can be enabled to be more inclusive and responsive to community voices, inspiring more community members to participate. And so on.
As Barcelona, Bologna, and Neighborland show, there are many different ways that digital tools — in coordination with strong in-person and more traditional approaches — can unlock civic participation. One promising approach is leveraging technology to bring transparency into processes and decision points that could allow community members to better understand the issues at hand, provide input, and, hopefully, feel satisfied that their voices have been heard. What’s more, we believe that by providing community members with an informed, nuanced understanding of the required trade-offs of a decision, digital tools could even encourage more decisions that put collective good ahead of individual interests.
So we decided to create a prototype — one small contribution towards a more civically-engaged urban future.
Creating Collab
As a first step, we partnered with Digital Public Square, a Toronto-based non-profit that works globally to rethink and redesign how to leverage technology to support communities. Together, we came up with the idea for Collab, a digital tool that could support communities hoping to increase participation and make more inclusive, collaborative decisions….(More)”.
Pitfalls of Aiming to Empower the Bottom from the Top: The Case of Philippine Participatory Budgeting
Paper by Joy Aceron: “… explains why and how a reform program that opened up spaces for participatory budgeting was ultimately unable to result in pro-citizen power shifts that transformed governance. The study reviews the design and implementation of Bottom-Up Budgeting (BuB), the nationwide participatory budgeting (PB) program in the Philippines, which ran from 2012 to 2016 under the Benigno Aquino government. The findings underscore the importance of institutional design to participatory governance reforms. BuB’s goal was to transform local government by providing more space for civil society organizations (CSOs) to co-identify projects with the government and to take part in the budgeting process, but it did not strengthen CSO or grassroots capacity to hold their Local Government Units (LGUs) accountable.
The BuB design had features that delivered positive gains towards citizen empowerment, including: (1) providing equal seats for CSOs in the Local Poverty Reduction Action Team (LPRAT), which are formally mandated to select proposed projects (in contrast to the pre-existing Local Development Councils (LDCs), which have only 25 percent CSO representation); (2) CSOs identified their LPRAT representatives themselves (as opposed to local chief executives choosing CSO representatives, as in the LDCs); and (3) LGUs were mandated to follow participatory requirements to receive additional funding. However, several aspects of the institutional design shifted power from local governments to the central government. This had a “centralizing effect”…
This study argues that because of these design problems, BuB fell short in achieving its main political reform agenda of empowering the grassroots—particularly in enabling downward accountability that could have enabled lasting pro-citizen power shifts. It did not empower local civil society and citizens to become a countervailing force vis-à-vis local politicians in fiscal governance. BuB is a case of a reform that provided a procedural mechanism for civil society input into national agency decisions but was unable to improve government responsiveness. It provided civil society with ‘voice’, but was constrained in enabling ‘teeth’. Jonathan Fox (2014) refers to “voice” as citizen inputs, feedback and action, while “teeth” refer to the capacity of the state to respond to voice.
Finally, the paper echoes the results of other studies which find that PB programs become successful when complemented by other institutional and state democratic capacity-building reforms and when they are part of a broader progressive change agenda. The BuB experience suggests that to bolster citizen oversight, it is essential to invest sufficient support and resources in citizen empowerment and in creating an enabling environment for citizen oversight….(More)”.
How Cold Is That Library? There’s a Google Doc for That
Colleen Flaherty at Inside Higher Ed: “What a difference preparation makes when it comes to doing research in Arctic-level air-conditioned academic libraries (or ones that are otherwise freezing — or not air-conditioned at all). Luckily, Megan L. Cook, assistant professor of English at Colby College, published a crowdsourced document called“How Cold Is that Library?” ….
Cook, who was not immediately available for comment, has said the document was group effort. Juliet Sperling, a faculty fellow in American art at Colby, credited her colleague’s “brilliance” but said the document was “generally inspired by conversations we’ve had as co-fellows” in the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography. The society brings together 60-some scholars of rare books and material texts from a variety of disciplinary or institutional approaches, she said, “so collectively, we’ve all spent quite a bit of time in libraries of various climates all over the world.” In addition to library temperatures, lighting and even humidity levels, the scholars trade research destinations’ photo policies and nearby eateries and drinking holes, among other tips. A spreadsheet opens up that resource to others, Sperling said. …(More)”.
Echo Chambers May Not Be as Dangerous as You Think, New Study Finds
News Release: “In the wake of the 2016 American presidential election, western media outlets have become almost obsessed with echo chambers. With headlines like “Echo Chambers are Dangerous” and “Are You in a Social Media Echo Chamber?,” news media consumers have been inundated by articles discussing the problems with spending most of one’s time around likeminded people.
But are social bubbles really all that bad? Perhaps not.
A new study from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that collective intelligence — peer learning within social networks — can increase belief accuracy even in politically homogenous groups.
“Previous research showed that social information processing could work in mixed groups,” says lead author and Annenberg alum Joshua Becker (Ph.D. ’18), who is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “But theories of political polarization argued that social influence within homogenous groups should only amplify existing biases.”
It’s easy to imagine that networked collective intelligence would work when you’re asking people neutral questions, such as how many jelly beans are in a jar. But what about probing hot button political topics? Because people are more likely to adjust the facts of the world to match their beliefs than vice versa, prior theories claimed that a group of people who agree politically would be unable to use collective reasoning to arrive at a factual answer if it challenges their beliefs.
“Earlier this year, we showed that when Democrats and Republicans interact with each other within properly designed social media networks, it can eliminate polarization and improve both groups’ understanding of contentious issues such as climate change,” says senior author Damon Centola, Associate Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School. “Remarkably, our new findings show that properly designed social media networks can even lead to improved understanding of contentious topics within echo chambers.”
Becker and colleagues devised an experiment in which participants answered fact-based questions that stir up political leanings, like “How much did unemployment change during Barack Obama’s presidential administration?” or “How much has the number of undocumented immigrants changed in the last 10 years?” Participants were placed in groups of only Republicans or only Democrats and given the opportunity to change their responses based on the other group members’ answers.
The results show that individual beliefs in homogenous groups became 35% more accurate after participants exchanged information with one another. And although people’s beliefs became more similar to their own party members, they also became more similar to members of the other political party, even without any between-group exchange. This means that even in homogenous groups — or echo chambers — social influence increases factual accuracy and decreases polarization.
“Our results cast doubt on some of the gravest concerns about the role of echo chambers in contemporary democracy,” says co-author Ethan Porter, Assistant Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. “When it comes to factual matters, political echo chambers need not necessarily reduce accuracy or increase polarization. Indeed, we find them doing the opposite….(More)… (Full Paper: “The Wisdom of Partisan Crowds“)
The Ruin of the Digital Town Square
Special Issue of The Atlantis: “Across the political spectrum, a consensus has arisen that Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other digital platforms are laying ruin to public discourse. They trade on snarkiness, trolling, outrage, and conspiracy theories, and encourage tribalism, information bubbles, and social discord. How did we get here, and how can we get out? The essays in this symposium seek answers to the crisis of “digital discourse” beyond privacy policies, corporate exposés, and smarter algorithms.
The Inescapable Town Square
L. M. Sacasas on how social media combines the worst parts of past eras of communication
Preserving Real-Life Childhood
Naomi Schaefer Riley on why decency online requires raising kids who know life offline
How Not to Regulate Social Media
Shoshana Weissmann on proposed privacy and bot laws that would do more harm than good
The Four Facebooks
Nolen Gertz on misinformation, manipulation, dependency, and distraction
Do You Know Who Your ‘Friends’ Are?
Ashley May on why treating others well online requires defining our relationships
The Distance Between Us
Micah Meadowcroft on why we act badly when we don’t speak face-to-face
The Emergent Order of Twitter
Andy Smarick on why the platform should be fixed from the bottom up, not the top down
Imagine All the People
James Poulos on how the fantasies of the TV era created the disaster of social media
Making Friends of Trolls
Caitrin Keiper on finding familiar faces behind the black mirror…(More)”
A Smart City Stakeholder Classification Model
Paper by Anthea Van der Hoogen, Brenda Scholtz and Andre Calitz: “Cities globally are facing an increasing forecasted citizen growth for the next decade. It has therefore become a necessity for cities to address their initiatives in smarter ways to overcome the challenges of possible extinction of resources. Cities in South Africa are trying to involve stakeholders to help address these challenges. Stakeholders are an important component in any smart city initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to report on a review of existing literature related to smart cities, and to propose a Smart City Stakeholder Classification Model. The common dimensions of smart cities are identified and the roles of the various stakeholders are classified according to these dimensions in the model. Nine common dimensions and related factors were identified through an analysis of existing frameworks for smart cities. The model was then used to identify and classify the stakeholders participating in two smart city projects in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa….(More)”.
Surround Sound
Report by the Public Affairs Council: “Millions of citizens and thousands of organizations contact Congress each year to urge Senators and House members to vote for or against legislation. Countless others weigh in with federal agencies on regulatory issues ranging from healthcare to livestock grazing rights. Congressional and federal agency personnel are inundated with input. So how do staff know what to believe? Who do they trust? And which methods of communicating with government seem to be most effective? To find out, the Public Affairs Council teamed up with Morning Consult in an online survey of 173 congressional and federal employees. Participants were asked for their views on social media, fake news, influential methods of communication and trusted sources of policy information.
When asked to compare the effectiveness of different advocacy techniques, congressional staff rate personal visits to Washington, D.C., (83%) or district offices (81%), and think tank reports (81%) at the top of the list. Grassroots advocacy techniques such as emails, phone calls and postal mail campaigns also score above 75% for effectiveness.
Traditional in-person visits from lobbyists are considered effective by a strong majority (75%), as are town halls (73%) and lobby days (72%). Of the 13 options considered, the lowest score goes to social media posts, which are still rated effective by 57% of survey participants.
Despite their unpopularity with the general public, corporate CEOs are an asset when it comes to getting meetings scheduled with members of Congress. Eighty-three percent (83%) of congressional staffers say their boss would likely meet with a CEO from their district or state when that executive comes to Washington, D.C., compared with only 7% who say their boss would be unlikely to take the meeting….(More)”.