ARTICLE IN PRESS JID: COMPNW [m3Gdc;August 3, 2015;17:29] Computer Networks 000 (2015) 1–15 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computer Networks journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comnet Motivating participation and improving quality of contribution in ubiquitous crowdsourcing Jorge Goncalves a,∗ , Simo Hosio a , Jakob Rogstadius b , Evangelos Karapanos b , Vassilis Kostakos a a Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Oulu, Pentti kaiteran katu 1, P.O. Box 4500, FI-90014 Oulu, Finland b Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, University of Madeira, Polo Cientïfico e Tecnológico da Madeira, 2nd Floor, 9020-105 Funchal, Portugal article info Article history: Received 15 October 2014 Revised 2 June 2015 Accepted 3 July 2015 Available online xxx Keywords: Ubiquitous Crowdsourcing Motivation Participation Performance Engagement abstract Ubiquitous crowdsourcing, or the crowdsourcing of tasks in settings beyond the desktop, is attracting interest due to the increasing maturity of mobile and ubiquitous technology, such as smartphones and public displays. In this paper we attempt to address a fundamental chal- lenge in ubiquitous crowdsourcing: if people can contribute to crowdsourcing anytime and anyplace, why would they choose to do so? We highlight the role of motivation in ubiq- uitous crowdsourcing, and its effect on participation and performance. Through a series of field studies we empirically validate various motivational approaches in the context of ubiq- uitous crowdsourcing, and assess the comparable advantages of ubiquitous technologies’ af- fordances. We show that through motivation ubiquitous crowdsourcing becomes comparable to online crowdsourcing in terms of participation and task performance, and that through motivation we can elicit better quality contributions and increased participation from work- ers. We also show that ubiquitous technologies’ contextual capabilities can increase partici- pation through increasing workers’ intrinsic motivation, and that the in-situ nature of ubiqui- tous technologies can increase both participation and engagement of workers. Combined, our findings provide empirically validated recommendations on the design and implementation of ubiquitous crowdsourcing. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Crowdsourcing work and the associated distribution of micro-tasks across large numbers of individuals are becom- ing increasingly popular in settings beyond the desktop, thus enabling a wide range of applications. Ubiquitous technolo- gies, such as smartphones and public displays, are now ma- ture enough to allow users to contribute to crowdsourcing tasks wherever and whenever. While the increased ease with which it is now possible to participate in crowdsourcing work ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +358404140304. E-mail address: jgoncalv@ee.oulu.fi, jorge.goncalves@ee.oulu.fi (J. Goncalves). raises new possibilities, it also raises an important question of motivation: if people can contribute to crowdsourcing any- time and anyplace, why would they choose to do so? While the issue of motivation has been a long-standing concern in the design of computer systems and online ser- vices, new technologies require that new motivational ap- proaches are developed, adapted, and validated. In terms of crowdsourcing, research in psychology, sociology, manage- ment and marketing provide a solid theoretical basis on hu- man motivation [36]. However, these theoretical approaches typically have to be adapted and fine-tuned for a crowd- sourcing setting. At the same, by motivating workers to con- tribute more, task requesters can unwillingly make them more susceptible to quality control issues [36] so careful mo- tivational considerations have to be taken into account. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2015.07.002 1389-1286/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: J. Goncalves et al., Motivating participation and improving quality of contribution in ubiquitous crowdsourcing, Computer Networks (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2015.07.002