Title: When Scientists Become Social Scientists: How Citizen Science Projects Learn About Volunteers Show Chinese title

Title: 当科学家成为社会科学家：公民科学项目如何了解志愿者

Abstract: Online citizen science projects involve recruitment of volunteers to assist researchers with the creation, curation, and analysis of large datasets. Enhancing the quality of these data products is a fundamental concern for teams running citizen science projects. Decisions about a project's design and operations have a critical effect both on whether the project recruits and retains enough volunteers, and on the quality of volunteers' work. The processes by which the team running a project learn about their volunteers play a critical role in these decisions. Improving these processes will enhance decision-making, resulting in better quality datasets, and more successful outcomes for citizen science projects. This paper presents a qualitative case study, involving interviews and long-term observation, of how the team running Galaxy Zoo, a major citizen science project in astronomy, came to know their volunteers and how this knowledge shaped their decision-making processes. This paper presents three instances that played significant roles in shaping Galaxy Zoo team members' understandings of volunteers. Team members integrated heterogeneous sources of information to derive new insights into the volunteers. Project metrics and formal studies of volunteers combined with tacit understandings gained through on- and offline interactions with volunteers. This paper presents a number of recommendations for practice. These recommendations include strategies for improving how citizen science project team members learn about volunteers, and how teams can more effectively circulate among themselves what they learn. Show Chinese abstract

Abstract: 在线公民科学项目涉及招募志愿者协助研究人员创建、管理和分析大型数据集。提高这些数据产品的质量是运行公民科学项目的团队的基本关注点。关于项目设计和运营的决策不仅对项目是否能招募并保留足够数量的志愿者至关重要，而且对志愿者工作的质量也有关键影响。运行项目团队了解志愿者的过程在这些决策中起着至关重要的作用。改善这些过程将增强决策能力，从而产生更好的数据质量，并使公民科学项目获得更成功的成果。 本文呈现了一项定性案例研究，通过对天文领域的重要公民科学项目——银河动物园（Galaxy Zoo）的研究团队如何了解其志愿者以及这种了解如何塑造他们的决策过程进行了访谈和长期观察。本文提出了三个对银河动物园团队成员理解志愿者起到重要作用的实例。团队成员整合了来自不同来源的信息以获得对志愿者的新见解。项目指标与志愿者的正式研究结合了通过线上和线下互动获得的隐性理解。 本文还提出了一些实践建议。这些推荐包括改进公民科学项目团队成员了解志愿者的方法，以及团队如何更有效地在其内部传播所学到的知识。