1st Edition
Community, Competition and Citizen Science Voluntary Distributed Computing in a Globalized World
By Anne Holohan
Copyright 2013
152 Pages
by
Routledge
146 Pages
by
Routledge
146 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Voluntary distributed computing projects divide large computational tasks into small pieces of data or work that are sent out over the Internet to be processed by individual users, who participate voluntarily in order to provide solutions that would ordinarily require investments of millions of dollars. This approach is contributing to the transformation of computationally heavy scientific... Read more
Contents: Preface; Introduction; The projects; Breaking down the walls: voluntary distributed computing and citizen science; Communities in voluntary distributed computing; Competition and co-opetition: the race to discover and win; Moderators, super-moderators, Beta testers and translators; Principal investigators and the scientific team; Volunteers; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
Anne Holohan is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and author of Networks of Democracy: Lessons from Kosovo for Afghanistan, Iraq and Beyond and Working Lives: The Irish in Britain.
’Anyone interested in new models of scientific inquiry involving the citizen scientist, as well as new forms of collaborative ICT use, must reserve a place on their bookshelf (or digital device) for this compelling and path-breaking new study. To date, there has been little attention paid to the burgeoning cooperative endeavors known as voluntary distributed computing (VDC) projects. Equipped with rich empirical data, Holohan adds much to the ongoing conversation regarding ordinary individuals’ altruistic contributions to science and technology. This is a much-needed contribution to the rapidly expanding field of new media studies that links enduring sociological concerns to emergent phenomena.’ Laura Robinson, Santa Clara University, USA
