1. Collaborative science across the globe:
The influence of culture and motivation on volunteers in the
United States, India, and Costa Rica
Dana Rotman, Ph.D. defense, March 11, 2013
Curi-Cancha reserve, Costa Rica

2. Collaborative scientific projects
Ecology
Other fields

3. Collaborative scientific projects
Ecology
Other fields

4. Outline
• Research questions
• Background literature
• Theoretical background
• Methods
• Findings
• Contributions
• Limitations and future work

5. Research questions
How can we motivate volunteers to continuously
collaborate with scientists on large-scale biodiversity
projects, in different cultures?
What brings volunteers to contribute to ecology-
related collaborative scientific projects?
1
Do volunteers’ motivations change over time?
2
Are the motivating factors similar in different
cultures?
3

6. Background literature - science
• Science – from individual to collaborative endeavor
(Latour & Woolgar, 1972; Trane, 1972)
• Inter-,multi-, trans-, cross- disciplinary science
(Sonnenwald, 2007)
• Collaboratories or cyberinfrastructure
(Olson & Olson, 2000; Finholt, 2002; Bos et al. 2007)

7. Background literature – volunteers’ involvement
in scientific work
• Collaborations involving volunteers:
• Contributory projects
• Collaborative projects
• Co-created projects
(Bonney et al., 2009; Wiggins & Crowston, 2011)
• Volunteers’ motivation
• Initial motivation
(Raddick et al., 2010; Nov et al. 2011)
• Continuous motivation
(Rotman et al. 2012)

8. Theoretical framework
Culture Motivation
Collaboration

9. Theoretical framework
Culture
National,
Scientific,
Collaborative
“The collective programming of the mind that distinguishes
the members of one group or category of people from
another” (Hofstede, 1980, p. 9)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
PDI IDV MAS UAI LTO
US
India
Costa Rica
Individualism/
collectivism
Femininity/
masculinity
Power distance Uncertainty
avoidance
Long vs. short
term planning
Adapted from Hofstede, 1980, 2001

10. Theoretical framework
Motivation
Social-identity based motivations (Batson, Ahmad, Tsang, 2002)
Increasing one’s
own welfare
Egoism
Increasing the
welfare of
another
individual within
the group
Altruism
Increasing the
overall welfare
of the group
Collectivism
Upholding one
or more
principles
Principlism
The compilation of forces that direct human behavior toward
attaining specific goals.

11. Methods
Size and
population
Number of
collaborative
projects
Estimated
number of
volunteers
Surveys Interviews
United
States
3rd largest in
size, 3rd in
population
Over 400 >100,000 142
(62 scientists; 80
volunteers)
13
(3 scientists; 10
volunteers)
India
7th largest in
size, 2nd in
population
2 national,
several dozen
local
< 10,000 156
(76 scientists; 43
students; 41
enthusiasts)
22
(6 scientists;
16 volunteers)
Costa Rica
127th largest
in size, 121st
in population
Several
hundred
~ 50,000 - 9
(mixed roles)
• 3 case studies
• Quantitative surveys
• Qualitative interviews

12. Findings
Motivation Culture
Collaboration

13. The United States
0
1
2
3
4
5
Altruism Collectivism Principalism Egoism
Motivationallevel-Likertscale
Motivational Factors
Scientists
Volunteers
n = 142
Altruism Collectivism Principlism Egoism

14. The United States
Personal interest
“I think personal interest comes first. Personal interest and personal
gain”
Personal benefits
Social benefits
Ease of
participation
“You wanted to go down there with a magnet attached to your brain and
try to absorb everything scientists had to say”
Learning process
Acknowledgement
“It was nice to get something back, because people aren’t going to keep
on doing that unless there’s something coming back”
Community-
related
motivations
“It’s the combination of being an effective citizen scientist and seeing the
community thrive… people really care about their natural resources
here”
InitialContinued

15. India
0
1
2
3
4
5
Altruism Collectivism Principlism Egoism
motivationallevel-Likertscale
Motivational factors
Scientists
Students
Enthusiasts
N = 156

16. India
Personal benefit
“It will benefit me to increase my knowledge and …. for my experience
for my future prospects or any other”
Tangible rewards
“They are not rich, they can do anything for you just for 50 Rupees, they
will gather every information for just 50 Rupees”
Learning process
“If people contributing data have some control over how [the data] is
used, I think if that’s made clear to people that might encourage people
to really contribute a little more”Ease of
participation
Community-
related
motivations
“Environmental education I see it like kind of drugs, you know, I had [to]
inject [sic] into the kids, catch them young… They will never be able to go
away from this and they will never be able to do against nature”
InitialContinued

17. Costa Rica
Culture’s role “If you visit Costa Rica and you talk to a cop, driver, or maybe a
bus driver or people that work in a restaurant, they will make
you a conversation about the topics of environment and their
importance, there’s a true moral thing”Education
Individual and
Community-
related
motivations
“There is a sense of social responsibility or environmental
responsibility”
Continuous
collaboration
“A volunteer can participate at any level of research in my
opinion. From a person who has no experience and needs to be
trained to participate, to someone who has the same academic
qualifications as the scientists and who just isn’t being paid”
InitialContinued

18. Findings
Motivation Culture
Collaboration

19. The United States
Locale
“I think every small town should have a citizen nature network
where they have specific speakers come in who work with
specific animals they may never in their lives come into contact
with… they can get in touch with the natural world immediately
around them”
Scientists and
volunteers
“I think that the most challenging thing is to say to scientists
that you want to do something, without some of the fear they
will consider you to be some annoying amateur”

20. India
Social
stratification and
hierarchy
“I am sure you will notice that somewhat hierarchy of society so
people won’t often express their feelings”
Trust
“Why is he showing his interest so much? He is eager for his
fellowship money, than I have to think 100 times, but if he is
eager for the knowledge he wants to gather, than most
welcome…”
Language
“There are people who cannot understand English, especially
when it comes by itself… people will go more and learn if we
use common language”
Bureaucracy
“One thing in India, unless you are a part of the government or
a government institute, it’s very difficult to get access to all the
existing data as well as to carry on your part”

21. Costa Rica
Government
support “A journalist was asking people if they would be supportive of a
tax to protect the country’s rain forests. And the people
responded that ‘yes, they would be OK with that’ … I often
comment to my colleagues, ‘We must be crazy in Costa Rica!
Accepting a tax!”
Public support
Language
“Access is not just technical, it’s language and the process of
data collecting… Again, it’s a role that citizen scientists often
take on, as an interpreter or translator, even more so than
scientists”

22. Findings
Motivation Culture
Collaboration

23. The collaboration cycle – The United States
Potential attrition
point
Potential attrition
point
Personal
interest
Active
collaboration
Positive within-
project
relationship
Continuous
collaboration
Personal interest, self
efficacy
Trust,
acknowledgement,
mentorship
Education and
outreach, policy and
activism
Positive within-
project and
external
relationships
Self-directed
motivations
Initiating participation
culture
culture
culture
culture

24. The collaboration cycle – India
Potential
attrition point
Potential attrition point
Potential
attrition point
Personal
benefit
Active
collaboration
Self-directed
motivation, pos
itive within-
project
relationship
Continuous
collaboration
Personal interest,
self promotion
self-promotion,
acknowledgement,
mentorship
Education and outreach,
self-promotion,
acknowledgement
Self-directed
motivations
Positive within-
project and external
relationships
Initiating participation
culture
culture
culture
culture
Self-directed
motivations

25. Potential attrition
point
Potential attrition
point
Social
responsibility
Active
collaboration
Positive within-
project
relationship
Continuous
collaboration
Social responsibility, self-
efficacy, self-
promotion, personal
interest
Common
goals, trust, acknowle
dgment
Education and outreach, policy
and activism,
acknowledgement
Positive within-
project and
external
relationships
Initiating participation
culture
culture
culture
culture
Collective
motivations,
self-directed
motivations
The collaboration cycle – Costa Rica

26. The collaboration cycle - differences
Potential attrition
point
Potential attrition
point
Personal/
social
aspects
Self vs.
collective
motivations
Active
collaboration
Self directed
motivations vs.
within-project
relationship
Continuous
collaboration
Self directed
motivations vs.
within project
and external
relationships
Initiating participation
culture
culture
culture
culture
Potential
attrition
point (only
India)

27. Key contributions – research questions
What brings volunteers to contribute to ecology-related
collaborative scientific projects?
• Self directed motivations (US, India)
• Collective motivations (Costa Rica)
1
Do volunteers’ motivations change over time?
• Through a combination of self directed factors, internal and external
relationships, motivation is reshaped and changes over time, affecting
participation practices
2
Are the motivating factors similar in different cultures?
• Culture has a nuanced but strong effect on motivation and participation in
collaborative scientific projects
• Cultural barriers vs. cultural support
3

28. Key theoretical contributions
Theoretical contribution
• A more nuanced look at Batson et al. theory of social
motivation, specifically for collaborative science
4
Potential
attrition point
Potential
attrition point
Personal/
social interest
Self vs.
collective
motivations
Active
collaboration
Self directed
motivations vs.
within-project
relationship
Continuous
collaboration
Self directed
motivations vs.
within project
and external
relationships
Initiating participation
culture
culture
culture
culture

29. Limitations and future work
• Not generalizabe
• Costa Rica survey
• Personal cultural perspective
Limitations
• Extending the study to other countries
• Determining the role of technology
• Suggesting design guidelines
• Viewing cultural differences as
opportunities and not just challenges
Future
work

30. Thank you!
Committee members
 Dr. Jenny Preece, Chair
 Dr. Brian Butler
 Dr. Kari Kraus
 Dr. Katie Shilton
 Dr. David Jacobs
NSF
 Biotracker SoCS grant(10-0352)
 Extreme ethnography EAGER grant
(11019993 )
Special thanks
The Biotracker team, EOL
Maggie Rodriguez, Jen Hammock, Carol
Boston, Sabah Rubina, Chitra Ravi
Toucan rescue ranch, Costa Rica