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Thanks so much for raising the question of digital piecework
research, Sarah. I am very interested in this issue, and am
currently reporting a story about it for the Chronicle of Higher
Education. I would love to talk with people who have had direct
experience with crowdsourcing as a research method—positive,
negative, and everything in between. If anyone on this list is
interested in discussing what they've seen for a potential story in
the Chronicle, contact me off-thread. <br>
<br>
Where have people been seeing this kind of practice taking place?
Has there been any evidence about how the results might compare to,
say, using undergraduates? And how has this kind of crowdsourcing
been a part of efforts to do organizing in, say, the Mechanical Turk
community?<br>
<br>
Nathan<br>
<div class="moz-signature"><br>
∴<br>
Nathan Schneider / therowboat.com<br>
<em><a href="http://www.therowboat.com/books/god-in-proof/">God in
Proof</a></em> / <em><a
href="http://www.therowboat.com/books/thank-you-anarchy">Thank
You, Anarchy</a></em>
<br>
[ <a
href="http://www.therowboat.com/nathan-at-therowboat.com.asc">public
key</a> ]<br>
<br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/06/2014 02:53 PM, Sarah T.
Roberts wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:7128A6F7-DB77-46E6-97F6-297645E6E1ED@uwo.ca"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Greetings, all -
I recently asked a question on the #dl14 Facebook page and thought I’d send it out to all on the list. As a researcher actively engaged in trying to bring to light the economic and labor realities of people working in digital piecework contexts, I have been disturbed that people, often my own peers (e.g., parties from my graduate school department), turn to services like Mechanical Turk and others to provide large-scale processing of tasks related to research projects, with seemingly little or no interrogation or critique of the economy upon which they are relying to conduct their research. While I’m sure the way these projects get past ethics boards is due to the compensation that the projects provide, there is such minimal accountability and ability for either researcher or subject to follow up/follow through once the research task is completed that it seems a dangerous practice in which to engage. This is even before we enter into a critique of these platforms, in general.
When I brought this up on Fb, I asked if anyone coming to #dl14 might be working on this topic. One person responded that she’s not working directly on it, but is interested in it and wants to talk more about it. It would be great to get a discussion going on the list that could then spill over into our time together in NYC.
Anyone interested?
Best,
Sarah
---
S a r a h T. R o b e r t s, P h. D.
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS)
Western University
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://fims.uwo.ca/index.htm">http://fims.uwo.ca/index.htm</a>
Blogging periodically at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://illusionofvolition.com">http://illusionofvolition.com</a>
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