Collaborative Research: EAGER: Zoo-Based Network Science Experimentation and Modeling

合作研究：EAGER：基于动物园的网络科学实验和建模

• 批准号: 1057829
• 负责人: Jason Watters
• 金额: $ 3万
• 依托单位: Chicago Zoological Society
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-01 至 2012-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1057829&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; EAGER; Zoo; Based

The pervasiveness and mobility of network-enabled devices has changed the way people interact with applications and it has also changed the way we interact with each other. Mobile devices and applications have the potential to provide users with a multitude of context-specific resources, collect a wealth of information about users and their environments, and enable users to become information sources. These systems have great potential to play an increased role in socially relevant domains, but a deeper understanding of the interactions between users, environments, applications and networks, is necessary to realize the potential to address large-scale problems. As we move forward it is critical to consider the entire system including the users. The goal of this research is to advance the understanding of network-based socio-technical systems by creating, modeling and analyzing a specific system based at the Chicago Zoological Society?s Brookfield Zoo. The Zoo can be viewed as a rich social system including staff, animals and a diverse group of over two million visitors per year. This project creates a socio-technical system to study by introducing technology with the purpose of enticing visitors to become citizen scientists by observing and reporting animal behavior, and allowing anyone to interact with the animal observation data collected by researchers. Social networking applications will be used to share animal observations and to explicitly make the animals part of the online social network. The Intellectual Merit of this project involves the interdisciplinary study of networks as an enabling technology and as a model for understanding the relationships between stakeholders at the Zoo. By creating a unified socio-technical framework to consider and model the relationships between the stakeholders and technology, one can explore many research issues. The research will aid in gaining a deeper understanding of the factors that influence information transfer across social networks. It will allow consideration of the types of information that are likely to stimulate network activity and facilitate a cognitive system that adapts to environment to optimize user outcomes. We will be able to ascertain how information from various sources (e.g. scientists, guests, educators) influences activity of the network and transmission of specific messages through the network. This work will also provide a demonstration of how individuals with fundamentally different roles in the network (animals, application designers, and application users) influence network outcomes. The Broader Impact of this project includes the software application introduced at the zoo, the research outcomes and the students exposed to the project. People of varied socio-economic backgrounds as well as many school groups and other organizations visit Brookfield Zoo. The National Research Council (NRC 2009) concludes that informal learning environments (e.g. Zoos) can have a significant impact on science learning outcomes for underrepresented groups. The work proposed here will be fundamental in determining a new role for technology in this learning. More immediately, it can also encourage a diverse audience of zoo visitors to pursue interests in the zoo animals and perhaps become a citizen scientist, reporting observations and investigating the data collected. Increased understanding of the connections between design and engineering of technology and social outcomes can empower us to best utilize technology to solve important social problems. This work will serve as a model for optimizing resource distribution when there is the potential to utilize comprehensive integrated information (social and technical) and the goal is to increase message transfer and understanding. Additionally, a diverse group of students will be involved and trained through this project. The PIs have a track record of working with underrepresented groups and will use this project as a platform to involve even more women and minorities.

网络设备的普遍性和移动性改变了人们与应用程序交互的方式，也改变了我们彼此交互的方式。移动设备和应用程序有潜力为用户提供大量特定于上下文的资源，收集有关用户及其环境的大量信息，并使用户成为信息源。这些系统具有在社会相关领域发挥更大作用的巨大潜力，但要实现解决大规模问题的潜力，必须更深入地了解用户、环境、应用程序和网络之间的交互。当我们前进时，考虑包括用户在内的整个系统至关重要。这项研究的目标是通过创建、建模和分析基于芝加哥动物学会布鲁克菲尔德动物园的特定系统，增进对基于网络的社会技术系统的理解。动物园可以被视为一个丰富的社会系统，包括工作人员、动物和每年超过 200 万游客的多元化群体。该项目通过引入技术来创建一个社会技术系统来进行研究，目的是通过观察和报告动物行为来吸引参观者成为公民科学家，并允许任何人与研究人员收集的动物观察数据进行交互。社交网络应用程序将用于分享动物观察结果，并明确使动物成为在线社交网络的一部分。该项目的智力价值涉及对网络的跨学科研究，作为一种使能技术和作为理解动物园利益相关者之间关系的模型。通过创建一个统一的社会技术框架来考虑和建模利益相关者与技术之间的关系，人们可以探索许多研究问题。该研究将有助于更深入地了解影响社交网络信息传输的因素。它将允许考虑可能刺激网络活动并促进适应环境以优化用户结果的认知系统的信息类型。我们将能够确定来自不同来源（例如科学家、客人、教育工作者）的信息如何影响网络活动以及通过网络传输特定消息。这项工作还将展示网络中具有根本不同角色的个体（动物、应用程序设计者和应用程序用户）如何影响网络结果。该项目的更广泛影响包括动物园引入的软件应用程序、研究成果以及接触该项目的学生。不同社会经济背景的人们以及许多学校团体和其他组织都会参观布鲁克菲尔德动物园。国家研究委员会（NRC 2009）得出结论，非正式学习环境（例如动物园）可以对代表性不足群体的科学学习成果产生重大影响。这里提出的工作对于确定技术在这种学习中的新作用至关重要。更直接的是，它还可以鼓励动物园游客的不同受众追求对动物园动物的兴趣，并可能成为一名公民科学家，报告观察结果并调查收集的数据。加深对技术设计和工程与社会成果之间联系的了解，可以使我们能够最好地利用技术来解决重要的社会问题。当有可能利用综合集成信息（社会和技术）并且目标是增加信息传递和理解时，这项工作将作为优化资源分配的模型。此外，多元化的学生群体将参与该项目并接受培训。 PI 拥有与代表性不足的群体合作的记录，并将利用该项目作为平台，让更多女性和少数族裔参与其中。