This project advances the study of socio-technical systems and social participation by investigating how system design, structure and agency are associated with different paths to participation in technology-mediated social participation (TMSP) systems. Online systems create organizational structural constraints and affordances by design, and therefore channel the potential for human agency -- roles, responsibilities and actions -- in ways that are not usually possible in the offline world. The project employs a mixed-methods design to examine collective behavior in different TMSP systems using longitudinal surveys and behavioral log data. In addition, this research includes a series of field experiments to test specific relationships between structural and organizational designs that facilitate collective outcomes and paths to participation. The project?s intellectual merits include: (i) developing a rigorous understanding of how social participation changes over time as a result of systems design, socio-technical structure and human agency; (ii) extending the long history of social scientific theories and empirical research on collective behavior, motivation, and community participation in both laboratory and real world environments; and, (iii) developing specific recommendations and design guidelines for future TMSP and citizen science systems.
This project will foster increased public participation in TMSP systems, and increased scholarly awareness of technology-mediated collaborations and citizen science as effective research resources. It will also encourage cross-disciplinary, cross-campus collaboration, by connecting scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, to study and advance TMSP research. In addition, it will contribute to education, by providing opportunities for students to reason about, design and implement new TMSP systems to connect large numbers of distributed volunteers with social needs.
