Nov-23-11 By Aminda
A recent post discussed the importance of getting more participation in open science. An article from Top Coder provides some interesting insight into why “gamesourcing” has been such a successful way to engage users in scientific projects.
While the gamesourcing model may not solve every problem, Adrien Treuille, co-founder of FoldIt, a gamesourcing platform which successfully solved a molecular, explains why game-play and Crowdsourcing worked so well for that challenge. Among her reasons:
It's a Total Rush! Playing a game is fun. Games that tie social experiences to the game-play can be extremely fun for the players. The Foldit creators experienced this first hand as an excited and dedicated community quickly developed around this game. In other words, it wasn't work, it was enjoyable and therefore people kept coming back to play more.