Gamification for volunteer cloud computing

Gamification for Volunteer Cloud Computing

Alimohammad Shahri1, Mahmood Hosseini1, Fabiano Dalpiaz2, Raian Ali1

1Bournemouth University, UK2Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Overview

• Volunteer cloud computing• Engagement and retention• Why gamification?• Volunteer types• Gamer types• Game mechanics• Volunteer types and gamification• Gamification concerns• Current Progress• Acknowledgment

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Volunteer Cloud Computing

• Volunteer cloud computing

– Volunteer computing and cloud computing

– Customer-to-business style

– People provide resources

– Businesses use resources

• Examples

– BOINC

– SETI@home

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Why Should I Join?

• Motivation problems

– How to engage people?

– How to retain people?

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Gamification

• The use of game design elements in a non-game context1

• Main goals:

– Motivation

– Engagement

1 Deterding, S., Sicart, M., Nacke, L., O'Hara, K., & Dixon, D. (2011, May). Gamification. using game-design elements in non-gaming contexts. In CHI'11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2425-2428). ACM.

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Why Gamification?

• Entertaining

• Motivating

• Persistent, as long as entertaining

• Everybody is a gamer, or gamer generation1

• Can lead to more collaboration

• Can lead to more productivity

Beck, J. C. (2004). Got game: How the gamer generation is reshaping business forever. Harvard Business Press.

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Volunteer Types

• Volunteer types in cloud projects1:– Super-crunchers

• Engage in processing large project data

• Expect a good return

– Lay public• Engage in small scale data processing

• Expect contribution to science

– Alpha testers• Engage in invited test processes

• Expect distinguished recognitionDarch, P., & Carusi, A. (2010). Retaining volunteers in volunteer computing projects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 368(1926), 4177-4192.

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Bartle’s Player Taxonomy1

• Achievers– Have goals to achieve– Usually in the form of accumulating and disposing of large quantities

of high-value treasure

• Explorers– Try to find as much as possible about the virtual world– Both in breadth and in depth

• Socialisers– Use the game’s communicative facilities to converse with fellow

players– Interested more in other players (sometimes NPCs)

• Killers– Try to impose their superiority to other players– Mostly by causing distress, but sometimes also by helping others

Bartle, R. (1996). Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: Players who suit MUDs.Journal of MUD research, 1(1), 19.

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Game Mechanics

• Leader-boards

• Points

• Online forums

• Epic meanings

• Badges

• Statuses

• Avatars

• …

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Volunteer Types andGamification Elements and Players

VolunteerTypes

Player TypesExample Game

Mechanics

Super-cruncher

AchieversSocializers

Competitive Non-collaborative

PointsLeaderboardsOnline forums

Lay public

Explorers Socializers

CollaborativeNon-competitive

Online forumsEpic meanings

Alpha-testersKillers

SocializersUniqueness Seekers

BadgesAvatarsStatuses

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Gamification Concerns

• Gamification as trivialisation of tasks• Gamification as a change to business

management norms• Gamification as a forced mechanism• Gamification as undermining the tasks• Gamification as “one size fits all”• Gamification as a quality diminisher• Gamification as clusterisation of users• Gamification as a demotivator for intrinsically

motivated users

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Shahri, A., Hosseini, M., Phalp, K., Taylor, J., & Ali, R. (2014). Gamification: a Syncretic View. Special Issue of the Personal and Ubiquitous Computing journal on "Mobile and Pervasive Games" [Submitted]

Current ProgressBased on Empirical Study

• Relevant Fields of Study

– User Experience

– Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

– Psychology

– Game Design

– Management and Human Resources

– Behavioural Economics

– Software Engineering


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Current ProgressBased on Empirical Study

• Relevant Stakeholders– Strategy Makers and Management

– Legal Departments

– Security and Privacy Engineers

– End-Users

– Behavioural Economic Experts

– IT Developers

– Researchers

– Domain Experts

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

• The research was supported by an FP7 Marie Curie CIG grant (the SOCIAD Project) and by Bournemouth University through the Fusion Investment Fund (the BBB, BUUU and VolaComp projects) and the Graduate School Santander Grant for PGR Development.

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Thank You!

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