@inproceedings{08a9f82bebc5495bab085e2259b20446,
title = "Volunteer computing: A model of the factors determining contribution to community-based scientific research",
abstract = "Volunteer computing is a powerful way to harness distributed resources to perform large-scale tasks, similarly to other types of community-based initiatives. Volunteer computing is based on two pillars: the first is computational - allocating and managing large computing tasks; the second is participative - making large numbers of individuals volunteer their computer resources to a project. While the computational aspects of volunteer computing received much research attention, the participative aspect remains largely unexplored. In this study we aim to address this gap: by drawing on social psychology and online communities research, we develop and test a three-dimensional model of the factors determining volunteer computing users' contribution. We investigate one of the largest volunteer computing projects - SETI@home - by linking survey data about contributors' motivations to their activity logs. Our findings highlight the differences between volunteer computing and other forms of community-based projects, and reveal the intricate relationship between individual motivations, social affiliation, tenure in the project, and resource contribution. Implications for research and practice are discussed.",
keywords = "boinc, citizen science, crowdsourcing, motivations, online communities, seti@home, volunteer computing",
author = "Oded Nov and David Anderson and Ofer Arazy",
year = "2010",
doi = "10.1145/1772690.1772766",
language = "English",
isbn = "9781605587998",
series = "Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW '10",
pages = "741--750",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on World Wide Web, WWW '10",
note = "19th International World Wide Web Conference, WWW2010 ; Conference date: 26-04-2010 Through 30-04-2010",
}