Crowdsourcing (CS) by cultural and heritage institutions engage volunteers in online projects without monetary compensation. Uncertainty concerning online volunteer motivation has led to a growing body of academic research. This study contributes to that debate, by extending focus to CS volunteer work in nonprofit cultural institutions where no monetary benefit is offered to volunteers. This study examines motivations of high performing volunteers in a newspaper digitisation CS project, initiated by the National Library of Australia. Volunteers are motivated by personal, collective, and external factors, and these motivations change over time. Volunteers initially show intrinsic motivations, though both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations play a critical role in their continued participation. Volunteer contributions range from data shaping (e.g., correcting digitised optical character recognition data) to knowledge shaping (e.g., shaping historical data through tagging and commenting, but also through development of norms and social roles). The locus of motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) also changes with different kinds of contributions. The distinction between data and knowledge shaping contributions, and the locus and focus of motivation behind these activities, has implications for the design of CS systems. Design for improved usability through cognitive and physical system affordances and development of social mechanisms for ongoing participation is discussed.

Emergency management agencies are progressively using social media for the sourcing and distribution of disaster information. Emergency management agencies are often unsure as to how to best identify and assess social media concerns (e.g. information security, trust) which must be addressed to develop a social media-enabled disaster information management environment. This paper adopts the Social Architecture Viewpoint Assessment (SAVA) framework for identifying and assessing social media concerns from four different viewpoints: IT, Value, Resource and Management. This paper demonstrates the use of the SAVA framework in the context of an in-depth empirical case study of an Australian emergency management agency. The results of this study indicate that the SAVA framework is useful for emergency information management managers in identifying and assessing social media concerns.

No abstract

PurposeRecent technological advances have enabled consumers and citizens to contribute to organizational processes through co-production and co-creation in ways that challenge traditional co-production. However, the practices and capabilities for value co-creation are less understood, particularly in an increasingly networked social government ecosystem. The purpose of this research is to examine the enablement of new digital co-production practices in social media platforms (SMPs) and theorize SMP-enabled digital co-production vis-à-vis traditional co-production for public sector.Design/methodology/approachPrimarily using principles of interpretivist approaches, a qualitative content analysis of communication practices (i.e. genres) observed within Australian government Facebook pages was carried out to examine the salient digital forms of co-production practices.FindingsSMPs enable new practices in digital co-production for public sector (information dissemination, Q&A, feedback and co-creation), ranging from lower to higher intensity in terms of resource integration, scale of contributions, engagement and extent of relationship vis-à-vis traditional co-production.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is bounded by its geographical emphasis on Australian Federal government. Hence, the results may not be readily transferable to other contexts.Practical implicationsOur framework offers an array of choices for digital co-production strategies to suit agency's focus and goals for engagement in the Facebook Pages. As agencies progress to reach higher intensity co-production, public engagement and impact increases.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to co-production in social government ecosystem by increasing the theoretical and practical understanding of new form of SMP-enabled digital co-production defined as “small-scale, repetitive, user-driven co-production that is flexible, durable, ad-hoc, and sporadic, where many hands make light work”. The proposed “co-production to co-creation” framework provides valuable guideline for enhancing public service provision via SMPs.

Research on government use of Facebook (FB) and citizen engagement has increased in the last five years or so; however there is a scarcity of empirical research that identify the extent of agency and audience engagement on government FB pages. Questions still remains unanswered if agencies with dissimilar functional focus engage differently in FB. Based on a large-scale world-first empirical analysis of over 147 federal government FB pages, this article presents insights on online participation in terms of government posts and citizen interactions observed over three years (2013-2016) across different types of agencies (i.e. operational, policy, regulatory and specialist). Preliminary findings show convincing agency and audience engagement on FB pages as a platform for sharing and communicating. However there are differences among the agencies in terms of audience and agency engagement relative to post activity and interactions. The findings have implications for federal government agencies, both from benchmarking and capability building perspectives.

The success of crowdsourcing (CS) systems depends on sustained participation, which is an ongoing challenge for the majority of CS providers. Unfortunately, participants are frequently demotivated by technical difficulties and the incorrect use of CS systems, which can result in CS failure. Although the literature generally assumes that sustained participation in CS is determined by a shift between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the role of system‐use practices in facilitating such a shift remains unknown. We explore how CS system‐use practices influence participants' sustained motivation, evolving from initiation to progression to sustention. Using the notion of technology‐in‐practice as a lens, we develop and examine a process model using an in‐depth case study of a large‐scale ongoing CS project, the Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program. The findings suggest that CS participants' motivation is shaped by an evolving combination of three basic components (i.e., contextual condition, outcome and action intensity) and mediated by two types of system‐use practice (i.e., passive and active). Passive‐use practices facilitate sustaining motivation from initiation to progression, whereas active‐use practices have a key role in sustention. Our study contributes to the emerging literature on the substantial role of system‐use practices in sustaining motivation, resulting in sustained participation. The findings also offer actionable insights into improving the viability of CS systems in retaining and motivating continuous and increased contributions from participants.

No abstract

While most crowdsourcing (CS) cases in the literature focus on commercial organisations, little is known about volunteers’ motivation of initial and continued participation in not-for-profit CS projects and importantly, about how the motivations may change over time. It is vital to understand motivation and motivational dynamics in a not-for-profit context because a fundamental challenge for not-for-profit CS initiations is to recruit and keep volunteers motivated without any formal contract or financial incentives. To tackle this challenge, we explore high performing volunteers’ initial motivation for joining and sustaining with a GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) CS project. We situated our interpretive exploration in a case study of the Australian Newspapers CS project initiated by the National Library of Australia. Based on the case study, we found that high-performing volunteers were motivated by a combination of personal, collective, and external factors classified into intrinsic, extrinsic, and internalised extrinsic motivations. Further, we found that these motivations changed over time. Specifically, many volunteers presented substantial personal (i.e., personal interest and fun) and community-centric motivations (i.e. altruism and non-profit cause) when they initially joined the project, whereas external motivations (i.e., recognition and rewards) had a greater impact on long-term participation. Our findings offer implications for CS system design (e.g., user profiles, tagging and commenting), incentive structure (e.g., reputation-based ranking, leader boards), and relational mechanisms (e.g., open communication channels) to stimulate sustainable contributions for not-for-profit CS initiatives.