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International Conference on Social Informatics

SocInfo 2016: Social Informatics pp 179–193Cite as

Social Contribution Settings and Newcomer Retention in Humanitarian Crowd Mapping

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10047))

Abstract

Organisers of crowd mapping initiatives seek to identify practices that foster an active contributor community. Theory suggests that social contribution settings can provide important support functions for newcomers, yet to date there are no empirical studies of such an effect. We present the first study that evaluates the relationship between colocated practice and newcomer retention in a crowd mapping community, involving hundreds of first-time participants. We find that certain settings are associated with a significant increase in newcomer retention, as are regular meetings, and a greater mix of experiences among attendees. Factors relating to the setting such as food breaks and technical disruptions have comparatively little impact. We posit that successful social contribution settings serve as an attractor: they provide opportunities to meet enthusiastic contributors, and can capture prospective contributors who have a latent interest in the practice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://tasks.hotosm.org.

  2. 2.

    http://planet.osm.org/planet/full-history/.

  3. 3.

    http://www.missingmaps.org/#events.

  4. 4.

    http://doggerel.arup.com/mapping-the-worlds-most-vulnerable-regions/.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICRI Cities, UCL, London, UK

    Martin Dittus

  2. Department of Computer Science, UCL, London, UK

    Giovanni Quattrone & Licia Capra

Authors
  1. Martin Dittus
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  2. Giovanni Quattrone
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  3. Licia Capra
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martin Dittus .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Emma Spiro

  2. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Yong-Yeol Ahn

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Dittus, M., Quattrone, G., Capra, L. (2016). Social Contribution Settings and Newcomer Retention in Humanitarian Crowd Mapping. In: Spiro, E., Ahn, YY. (eds) Social Informatics. SocInfo 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10047. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47874-6_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47874-6_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47873-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47874-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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