Micro-volunteering

Last updated

Micro-volunteering describes a volunteer, or team of volunteers, completing small tasks that make up a larger project. These tasks often benefit a research, charitable, or non-governmental organization. It differs from normal volunteerism as the tasks take only minutes to a few hours, and the volunteer does not make a long-term commitment. As a form of virtual volunteering, the tasks are usually distributed and completed online via an internet-connected device, including smartphones. It typically does not require an application process, screening or training period, takes only minutes or a few hours to complete, and does not require an ongoing commitment by the volunteer.

Contents

History

At the global level, in 2000 the United Nations Volunteers programme launched the Online Volunteering service [1] to provide a venue where individuals from across the globe can take action for sustainable human development by supporting the activities of development organizations over the Internet. Grassroots organizations, international NGOs, local governments, educational institutions, and United Nations agencies just need to register in this website, describe the microtask that should be addressed and launch a global call for support from individuals worldwide.

The term "microvolunteering" first appeared on 9 May 2006 within a response to a blog post on the U.K. mySociety platform. [2] A few months later, a Spanish microvolunteering website registered the phrase "microvoluntarios" as a web domain name. [3] Microvoluntarios created the first publicly accessible online micro-volunteering platform in May 2008, [4] after the first micro-volunteering mobile phone application was submitted to a public Google Android competition by The Extraordinaries. [5]

The concept was popularized by The Extraordinaries, a San Francisco-based social enterprise founded in January 2008. Their product is currently operating as Skills For Change. [6] Other current popular microvolunteering projects include the platform Help From Home [7] and Be My Eyes, [8] a project focused on connecting volunteers to people with visual impairments in real time.

Micro-volunteering, online volunteering and online activism through social media are fast growing trends, but there have been some concerns. Some observers believe the digital divide may further exclude people with limited access to technology and that benefits are not as accessible in low-income countries. Others assert that technology has made volunteerism more impersonal by discouraging face-to-face interaction, possibly obstructing volunteer engagement. [9] Additionally, some non-profit organizers are not convinced that it will be effective. [10]

Examples

The tasks involved in a micro-volunteering project are often similar to the crowdsourcing tasks found on crowdwork platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk. Tagging photos from a vast database [11] or transcribing manuscripts are some examples. NASA's ClickWorkers project asks online volunteers to identify martian craters from photos.

However, nonprofits and non-governmental organizations have also successfully deployed micro-volunteer projects through text messaging. [12] Volunteer health workers, for example, send SMS text messages to report basic symptoms of illness and disease. Plotting the geographical occurrence of these symptoms on maps (or "crowdmapping"), using programmes such as Kenyan-based Ushahidi can help epidemiologists to identify patterns of disease and provide early warning of potential outbreaks. In Rwanda, the government distributes cell phones to volunteer community health-care workers in rural areas. These are used to monitor the progress of pregnant village women, to send regular updates to health-care professionals, and to call for urgent assistance when necessary. The scheme has contributed significantly to reducing maternal deaths. [13] SMS messaging is also a powerful tool for election monitoring organizations to support the work of volunteers. It can help them to address logistic challenges more rapidly as well as contributing to effective election oversight and the protection of citizens' rights. [14]

Micro-volunteering is not always a solo activity, and some projects have included aspects of friendsourcing. Brady et al. explored this concept by forwarding visual questions from people with visual impairments to volunteers on Facebook. Questions were automatically posted to the volunteers' Facebook New Feeds, and responses to the question from the volunteers' friends were then returned to the original requestor. [15]

Relationship to online activism

Micro-volunteering is closely related to micro-activism, where organizations recruit online volunteers to complete small acts of advocacy. For example, in 2013, the Human Rights Campaign spread a logo for marriage equality on Facebook through user profile pictures to raise awareness for the issue. [16] These efforts are sometimes labelled as "slacktivism", as they require very little commitment from volunteers and their effectiveness is debated. [17] Savage et al. also encouraged online activism in an interactive method by using a Twitter bot to seek out and contact potential volunteers. [18]

See also

Related Research Articles

Personal information management (PIM) is the study and implementation of the activities that people perform in order to acquire or create, store, organize, maintain, retrieve, and use informational items such as documents, web pages, and email messages for everyday use to complete tasks and fulfill a person's various roles ; it is information management with intrapersonal scope. Personal knowledge management is by some definitions a subdomain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WIMP (computing)</span> Style of human-computer interaction

In human–computer interaction, WIMP stands for "windows, icons, menus, pointer", denoting a style of interaction using these elements of the user interface. Other expansions are sometimes used, such as substituting "mouse" and "mice" for menus, or "pull-down menu" and "pointing" for pointer.

In computing, post-WIMP comprises work on user interfaces, mostly graphical user interfaces, which attempt to go beyond the paradigm of windows, icons, menus and a pointing device, i.e. WIMP interfaces.

The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) series of academic conferences is generally considered the most prestigious in the field of human–computer interaction and is one of the top-ranked conferences in computer science. It is hosted by ACM SIGCHI, the Special Interest Group on computer–human interaction. CHI has been held annually since 1982 and attracts thousands of international attendees.

Virtual volunteering refers to volunteer activities completed, in whole or in part, using the Internet and a home, school buildings, telecenter, or work computer or other Internet-connected device, such as a smartphone or a tablet. Virtual volunteering is also known as online volunteering, remote volunteering or e-volunteering. Contributing to free and open source software projects or editing Wikipedia are examples of virtual volunteering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GroupLens Research</span> Computer science research lab

GroupLens Research is a human–computer interaction research lab in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities specializing in recommender systems and online communities. GroupLens also works with mobile and ubiquitous technologies, digital libraries, and local geographic information systems.

Susanne Boll is a Professor for Media Informatics and Multimedia Systems in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. and is a member of the board at the research institute OFFIS. She is a member of SIGMM and SIGCHI of the ACM as well as the German Informatics Society GI. She founded and directs the HCI Lab at the University of Oldenburg and OFFIS.

Steve Whittaker is a Professor in human-computer interaction at the University of California Santa Cruz. He is best known for his research at the intersection of computer science and social science in particular on computer mediated communication and personal information management. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and winner of the CSCW 2018 "Lasting Impact" award. He also received a Lifetime Research Achievement Award from SIGCHI, is a Member of the SIGCHI Academy. He is Editor of the journal Human-Computer Interaction.

Value sensitive design (VSD) is a theoretically grounded approach to the design of technology that accounts for human values in a principled and comprehensive manner. VSD originated within the field of information systems design and human-computer interaction to address design issues within the fields by emphasizing the ethical values of direct and indirect stakeholders. It was developed by Batya Friedman and Peter Kahn at the University of Washington starting in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Later, in 2019, Batya Friedman and David Hendry wrote a book on this topic called "Value Sensitive Design: Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination". Value Sensitive Design takes human values into account in a well-defined matter throughout the whole process. Designs are developed using an investigation consisting of three phases: conceptual, empirical and technological. These investigations are intended to be iterative, allowing the designer to modify the design continuously.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marilyn Tremaine</span> American computer scientist

Marilyn Mantei Tremaine is an American computer scientist. She is an expert in human–computer interaction and considered a pioneer of the field.

Social visualization is an interdisciplinary intersection of information visualization to study creating intuitive depictions of massive and complex social interactions for social purposes. By visualizing those interactions made not only in the cyberspace including social media but also the physical world, captured through sensors, it can reveal overall patterns of social memes or it highlights one individual's implicit behaviors in diverse social spaces. In particular, it is the study “primarily concerned with the visualization of text, audio, and visual interaction data to uncover social connections and interaction patterns in online and physical spaces. ACM Computing Classification System has classified this field of study under the category of Human-Centered Computing (1st) and Information Visualization (2nd) as a third level concept in a general sense.

Victoria Bellotti is a Senior CI researcher in the Member Experience Team at Netflix. Previously, she was a user experience manager for growth at Lyft and a research fellow at the Palo Alto Research Center. She is known for her work in the area of personal information management and task management, but from 2010 to 2018 she began researching context-aware peer-to-peer transaction partner matching and motivations for using peer-to-peer marketplaces which led to her joining Lyft. Victoria also serves as an adjunct professor in the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at University of California Santa Cruz, on the editorial board of the Personal and Ubiquitous Computing and as an associate editor for the International Journal of HCI. She is a researcher in the Human–computer interaction community. In 2013 she was awarded membership of the ACM SIGCHI Academy for her contributions to the field and professional community of human computer interaction.

Example-centric programming is an approach to software development that helps the user to create software by locating and modifying small examples into a larger whole. That approach can be helped by tools that allow an integrated development environment (IDE) to show code examples or API documentation related to coding behaviors occurring in the IDE. “Borrow” tactics are often employed from online sources, by programmers leaving the IDE to troubleshoot. The purpose of example-centric programming is to reduce the time spent by developers searching online. Ideally, in example-centric programming, the user interface integrates with help module examples for assistance without programmers leaving the IDE. The idea for this type of “instant documentation” is to reduce programming interruptions. The usage of this feature is not limited to experts, as some novices reap the benefits of an integrated knowledge base, without resorting to frequent web searches or browsing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Projector camera systems</span>

Projector-camera systems (pro-cam), also called camera-projector systems, augment a local surface with a projected captured image of a remote surface, creating a shared workspace for remote collaboration and communication. Projector-camera systems may also be used for artistic and entertainment purposes. A pro-cam system consists of a vertical screen for implementing interpersonal space where front-facing videos are displayed, and a horizontal projected screen on the tabletop for implementing shared workspace where downward facing videos are overlapped. An automatically pre-warped image is sent to the projector to ensure that the horizontal screen appears undistorted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacob O. Wobbrock</span> American computer scientist

Jacob O. Wobbrock is a Professor in the University of Washington Information School and, by courtesy, in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. He is Director of the ACE Lab, Associate Director and founding Co-Director Emeritus of the CREATE research center, and a founding member of the DUB Group and the MHCI+D degree program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Mackay</span> Computer Scientist

Wendy Elizabeth Mackay is a Canadian researcher specializing in human-computer interaction. She has served in all of the roles on the SIGCHI committee, including Chair. She is a member of the CHI Academy and a recipient of a European Research Council Advanced grant. She has been a visiting professor in Stanford University between 2010 and 2012, and received the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award in 2014.

Andrew Cockburn is currently working as a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is in charge of the Human Computer Interactions Lab where he conducts research focused on designing and testing user interfaces that integrate with inherent human factors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shumin Zhai</span> Human–computer interaction research scientist

Shumin Zhai is a Chinese-born American Canadian Human–computer interaction (HCI) research scientist and inventor. He is known for his research specifically on input devices and interaction methods, swipe-gesture-based touchscreen keyboards, eye-tracking interfaces, and models of human performance in human-computer interaction. His studies have contributed to both foundational models and understandings of HCI and practical user interface designs and flagship products. He previously worked at IBM where he invented the ShapeWriter text entry method for smartphones, which is a predecessor to the modern Swype keyboard. Dr. Zhai's publications have won the ACM UIST Lasting Impact Award and the IEEE Computer Society Best Paper Award, among others, and he is most known for his research specifically on input devices and interaction methods, swipe-gesture-based touchscreen keyboards, eye-tracking interfaces, and models of human performance in human-computer interaction. Dr. Zhai is currently a Principal Scientist at Google where he leads and directs research, design, and development of human-device input methods and haptics systems.

Batya Friedman is an American professor in the University of Washington Information School. She is also an adjunct professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering and adjunct professor in the Department of Human-Centered Design and Engineering, where she directs the Value Sensitive Design Research Lab. She received her PhD in learning sciences from the University of California, Berkeley School of Education in 1988, and has an undergraduate degree from Berkeley in computer science and mathematics.

Niloufar Salehi is an American-Iranian computer scientist who is an assistant professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. She works on human–computer interaction in a broad array of sectors.

References

  1. ↑ Online Volunteering service, History
  2. ↑ "Do me a favour". 2006-04-06.
  3. ↑ http://whois.domaintools.com/microvoluntarios.org
  4. ↑ "¿Te sobran 20 minutos? Hazte microvoluntario virtual!". Archived from the original on 2013-11-14. Retrieved 2011-12-27.
  5. ↑ Mobile phone volunteering Archived 2012-05-16 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ↑ "SkillsForChange Microvolunteering. Skilled Online Volunteering". Archived from the original on 2013-06-22. Retrieved 2015-08-05.
  7. ↑ "Help From Home: Microvolunteering info and microvolunteer actions". helpfromhome.org. Archived from the original on 5 November 2020. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  8. ↑ "Be My Eyes Bringing Sight to the Blind and Visually Impaired". bemyeyes.com. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  9. ↑ Gladwell, M. (2010, October 4). Small change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted. The New Yorker. Retrieved 12 May 2011 from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-3
  10. ↑ Voida, Amy; Harmon, Ellie; Al-Ani, Ban (2012-01-01). "Bridging between organizations and the public". Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '12. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 1967–1976. doi:10.1145/2207676.2208341. ISBN   9781450310154. S2CID   2825001.
  11. ↑ Photo database tagging and editing Archived 2015-07-04 at archive.today
  12. ↑ SWVR "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-07-14. Retrieved 2014-11-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  13. ↑ Desai, L. (2010, July 28). Cell phones save lives in Rwandan villages. Cable News Network. Retrieved 30 April 2011 from 28/world/Rwanda.phones.pregnant.wo men_1_cell-phones-health-workers-free- phones?_s=PM:WORLD
  14. ↑ State of the World’s Volunteerism Report 2011, "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-12-02. Retrieved 2015-07-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  15. ↑ Brady, Erin; Morris, Meredith Ringel; Bigham, Jeffrey P. (2015-01-01). "Gauging Receptiveness to Social Microvolunteering". Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '15. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 1055–1064. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.698.2761 . doi:10.1145/2702123.2702329. ISBN   9781450331456. S2CID   30506611.
  16. ↑ Vie, Stephanie (30 March 2014). "In defense of "slacktivism": The Human Rights Campaign Facebook logo as digital activism". First Monday. 19 (4). Archived from the original on 3 May 2021. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  17. ↑ Voida, Amy; Harmon, Ellie; Al-Ani, Ban (2012-01-01). "Bridging between organizations and the public". Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI '12. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 1967–1976. doi:10.1145/2207676.2208341. ISBN   9781450310154. S2CID   2825001.
  18. ↑ Savage, Saiph; Monroy-Hernandez, Andres; Höllerer, Tobias (2016-01-01). "Botivist". Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing. CSCW '16. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 813–822. arXiv: 1509.06026 . doi:10.1145/2818048.2819985. ISBN   9781450335928. S2CID   1568426.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.