Peter Darch, Annamaria Carusi Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford 8 December 2009...
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Transcript of Peter Darch, Annamaria Carusi Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford 8 December 2009...
Peter Darch, Annamaria Carusi
Oxford e-Research Centre,University of Oxford
8 December 2009
IntroductionVolunteer computing projects
Explosion of scientific projects requiring large-scale computing capacity (Welsh et al. 2006)
Drive for greater public engagement on the part of scientists
VCPs since 1996In a variety of scientific fields
Goals of Volunteer Computing ProjectsTo do science
e.g. BRaTS@Home
To educate and engage the publice.g. climateprediction.net; Rosetta@home
To achieve these, they need to recruit and retain volunteers
Set up in 1999, in order to study uncertainty in climate models
Became volunteer computing project, September 2003
With the support of UK e-Science (EPSRC), now ‘by far the largest full-resolution climate modelling experiment in the world‘ (Martin et al. 2005, p. 2)~57 000 active users
A ‘work unit’A single climate model (1920-2080)
Online forums
Feedback from the project ‘Credits’
Volunteers form teams, often with own web pages and forums
League tables on climateprediction.net’s website
Screensaver showing progress of the modelVisualization
http://attribution.cpdn.org/images/cloudshot_win0.gif(accessed 17 November 2008)
Two overriding (inter-related) aims:To produce scientific results
Results published in scientific journals, including Nature (e.g. Stainforth et al. (2005) has been cited 375 times)
To educate the public about climate science Materials on project website Talks in schools, universities
Also seeks to be ongoingNew projects developed
The case studyData collected:
climateprediction.net online forums
Semi-structured interviews with software engineers and scientists involed in developing and running the project
Online questionnaires for project volunteers
Papers published by technoscientists
Retaining project volunteersDifferent groups of project volunteers:
“Super-crunchers” Those who do a great deal of work for the project
Those with little prior familiarity with scientific institutions
“Alpha-testers” Those who test the new models and work units
These groups valuable to climateprediction.net in different waysAnd have different motivations for taking part
The “super-crunchers”Enjoy the prestige of doing a great deal of
scientific workPost on forums about how much they’ve done
Posts when milestones reached Signatures in forum posts:
Signatures
The “super-crunchers”Do a great deal of work for the project
~10% of credit awarded to ~0.2% of active volunteers
~60% of credits awarded to ~10% of volunteers
How they are retained:Forums and teamsAnd credit system
Stability Consistency
Those with few links to scientific institutionsVery important group from point of view of
public outreach
No other apparent links to technoscientific institutions
Relatively low credit scores Participate in only a handful of other BOINC
projects, if at all ~75% of volunteers; but <25% of credits assigned
to them
Those with few links to scientific institutionsGenerally believed by those launching VCPs
that they are interested in:VisualizationsBeing educated about the science behind the
VCP
More interestedBeing reassured that they are making a
contribution Cumulative credit system Regular feedback about scientific results
The “alpha-testers”Important contribution to the ongoing nature
of the project
Test new models and work units
15, 20, 30 or more BOINC projects So may not be available for testing
The “alpha-testers”Little trust in the other volunteers
Belief that these volunteers know little about science
Instead, belief that volunteers are motivated primarily by credit system
Need credit system with consistent/inflexible rules
ConclusionsGoals of running a VCP
To do scienceTo engage/educate the public
Decisions to be madeOngoing vs one-offWhat to offer the volunteers
Educational material Visualizations Policies regarding systems of credit
ConclusionsDifferent groups of volunteers
“Super-crunchers”Those with little prior engagement with science“Alpha-testers”
Contribution towards different goals
Different ways of engaging and retaining themAll motivated by the belief that the project
produces worthwhile science
AcknowledgmentsParticular thanks to:
Milo Thurston & Tolu Aina, who work on running and maintaining climateprediction.net, for their time and for cyber-introductions to climateprediction.net volunteers
mo.v and Thyme Lawn, two climateprediction.net forum moderators, for advice on how to approach their online community and for promoting my project on the climateprediction.net forums
The many climateprediction.net volunteers
ReferencesMartin, A., Aina, T., Christensen, C., Kettleborough, J.
& Stainforth, D. (2005) ‘On two kinds of public-resource distributed computing’, Prodceedings of Fourth UK e-Science All-Hands Meeting.
Stainforth, D., Aina, T., Christensen, C., Collins, M., Faull, N., Frame, D., Kettleborough, J., Knight, S., Martin, A., Murphy, J., Piani, C., Sexton, D., Smith, L., Spicer, R., Thorpe, A. & Allen, M.. (2005). ‘Uncertainty in predictions of the climate response to rising levels of greenhouse gases.’ Nature, vol. 433, pp. 404-406.
Welsh, E., Jirotka, M. & Gavaghan, D. (2006) ‘Post-genomic science: cross-disciplinary and large-scale collaborative research and its organizational and technological challenges for the scientific research process’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, vol. 364, no. 1843, pp. 1533-1549.