The document discusses incentivizing user participation in semantic content authoring through gamification and virtual worlds. It outlines how tasks like annotation can be turned into games and embedded in virtual environments to motivate contributions. Examples of semantic games like OntoPronto and virtual world implementations like in Tiny Planets are provided. The conclusion emphasizes that human input is needed for semantic tasks and games/virtual worlds can create successful applications by addressing the challenges of knowledge corpora, design, and ensuring widespread participation.

1. Reputation, community, Web
2.0, and games: incentives for
semantics – about getting people
involved
Katharina Siorpaes and Elena Simperl
SemTech 2010
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2. Executive summary
• Many tasks related to semantic content authoring cannot be undertaken
without human contribution.
• User motivation is essential for semantic applications to achieve critical
mass and ensure sustainable growth.
• How to encourage user participation
– Incentives
– Technology design
– Usability engineering
– Games with a purpose
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3. About the speakers
Katharina Siorpaes Elena Simperl
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4. Agenda
• Human-driven semantic content authoring
• Incentives and participatory design
• Example: Casual games
• Example: Virtual worlds
• Conclusion
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5. Human-driven semantic content authoring
Incentives and participatory design
Example: Casual games
Example: Virtual worlds
Conclusions
HUMAN-DRIVEN SEMANTIC
CONTENT AUTHORING
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6. Human vs computational intelligence
• Ordered sequence of tasks into which the
authoring exercise can be divided
• Required skills and expertise
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7. Example: semantic annotation
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8. Example: ontology evaluation
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9. Example: ontology alignment
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10. MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION
HOW CAN WE MOTIVATE PEOPLE
TO DEDICATE THEIR VALUABLE TIME
TO ANNOTATE THEIR/OUR DATA?
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11. Human-driven semantic content authoring
Incentives and participatory design
Example: Casual games
Example: Virtual worlds
Conclusions
INCENTIVES AND PARTICIPATORY
DESIGN
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12. Motivation vs incentives
• Incentives are ‘rewards’ assigned by an external
‘judge’ to a performer for undertaking a specific task.
• Common belief (among economists): incentives can
be translated into a sum of money for all practical
purposes.
• Incentives can be related to both extrinsic and
intrinsic motivations.
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13. Extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation
• Extrinsic motivation if task is considered
– Boring, dangerous, useless, socially undesirable,
dislikable by the performer.
• Intrinsic motivation if
– The performer likes what he/she is doing
– The act is satisfying in itself (it can happen for
many different reasons).
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14. Web 2.0 is hot, Semantic Web is
not?
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15. Web 2.0 motivators
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16. User-empowered Web
• Comprehensive incentives studies are
available (Kuznetsov, 2004; Marlow et
al.,2006; Wikipedia, 2009).
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17. Example: Wikipedians
• Reciprocity: Altruistic contributors receive a
benefit in return.
• Community: “Wikipedians […] feel needed”, there
is “a sense of common purpose and belonging “.
• Reputation: Contributors “develop identities in
order to be respected, trusted, and appreciated
by peers”.
• Autonomy: Contributors enjoy “the freedom of
independent decision”.
Kuznetsov, 2004
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18. Factors influencing incentives design
• Tasks or an ordered collection of tasks into
which the authoring exercise can be divided.
• Skills required to undertake the task.
• Goal of the authoring exercise.
• Social structure, i.e. social relationships
among the subjects participating in the
exercise.
• Nature of the good. www.insemtives.eu 18

19. Example: image sharing on a social
platform
• Task: attaching concepts and
relationships to images
(iPhoto).
• Skills: identifying objects in
images and choosing the
right description.
• Goal: sharing and retrieval.
• Social structure: Friends (in
social network).
• Nature of the good:
annotations accessible to me
and my friends.
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20. Example: UNSPSC and eCl@ss
alignment
• Task: ontology alignment
• Skills: domain knowledge,
modeling skills
• Goal: interoperability
• Social structure:
enterprise, team
• Nature of good: for
benefit of enterprise
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21. Technology and application design
• Involve users in the design process.
– Design workshops, interviews etc.
• Take usability serious.
– Design for efficiency, effectiveness and user
satisfaction.
• Design for sociability.
– Support sharing, contributing, collaborating,
identity-building.
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22. Technology and application design
(ii)
• Respect trust/security and safety/privacy
issues.
– Support visibility and awareness.
• Design for fun.
• Follow an user experience design approach.
• Support a user’s individual identity in a (and
contribution to a) community with collaborative
activities.
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23. Example: image annotation in
OKEnterprise (i)
• Involvement of users in design
process
– Interviews and user
workshops
• Usability
– Interviews, usability
evaluations
• Design for sociability
– User interaction, visibility of
contributions, registered
users, collaborative working
• Trust and privacy
– Trust in enterprise portal,
rating
– Privacy: users have control
over their data
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24. Example: image annotation in
OKEnterprise (ii)
• Design for fun
– Annotator of the week,
rankings
– Casual games
• User-experience design
approach
– Evaluate and revise
depending on user
experience
• Support user’s individual
identity
– Registration of users,
individual user pages
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25. Human-driven semantic content authoring
Incentives and participatory design
Example: Casual games
Example: Virtual worlds
Conclusions
NOW: FUN AND COMPETITION:
GAMES FOR SEMANTICS!
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26. OntoPronto: Step 1
8/10/2011
ESWC 2008 26

27. OntoPronto: Step 2

28. OntoTube
8/10/2011
ESWC 2008 28

29. OntoTube

30. Results 1.9%
0.5%
Challenges in which
n=2905 rounds at least the first task
was completed
consensually
Wrong judgements of
ontological nature
Wrong abstractions
12.9% Either skipped or no
consensus found in
the first task
97.6%
10.2%
Challenges in which
only the first task was
completed
consensually
Challenges in which
both tasks were
completed
consensually
76.9%
n=2234

31. MASSACRE – MASive Semantic
Annotation Creation Game
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32. Phratris – Phrase Analysis TETRIS
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33. playence’ Uhani (i)
Check
www.playence.com!
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34. playence’ Uhani (ii)
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35. Casual games
1. Steep learning curve
2. Fast game play: little time effort required
3. Simple implementation (simple interface and
graphics)
4. Low hardware efforts (usually browser or
mobile app)
5. Low bandwidth requirements
6. Mass audience
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36. How to design your own game
1. Specify output
2. Identify input
3. Choose type of game and define game play
4. Based on previous decisions, define game
play and adapt underlying game ontology
5. Adapt or define export algorithm
6. Evaluate output
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37. Guidelines
1. Timed response 5. Random player pairing
2. Score keeping 6. Player testing
3. Player skill level 7. Repetition
4. High score lists 8. Taboo outputs
5. Randomness
Luis von Ahn. Games With A Purpose.
IEEE Computer Magazine, June 2006. pp
96-98.
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38. Challenges
• Identifying suitable tasks in semantic content creation.
• Designing games.
• Designing a usable, attractive interface.
• Identifying suitable knowledge corpora.
• Preventing cheating.
• Defusing typical pitfalls of conceptual modeling.
• Distribution of labor.
• Fostering user participation.
• Deriving formal representations.
• Scalability and performance.
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39. Human-driven semantic content authoring
Incentives and participatory design
Example: Casual games
Example: Virtual worlds
Conclusions
ANNOTATION IN VIRTUAL WORLDS
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40. Tiny Planets
• Kids TV property licensed in over
100 countries worldwide
• Education
• Diverse broadcaster base – from
Al Jazeera to American Armed
Forces network
• Unusual age profile – kids 4 -11
• Brand extensions into web and
virtual world
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41. Tiny Planets (ii)
• Tiny Planets website – 40,000
unique visitors per month
• 100,000 page impressions
• Average stay 8 minutes
• MTP virtual world – active
47,000 user accounts
• Books, Fun, TV, Learning, Labs
sites as well as virtual world
• Real and virtual currencies
• Cross-site account creation
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42. Virtual world
• Engage kids with annotation
games as a means of expression
• Combination of ‘rating’, ‘tagging’,
and pre-scripted comments
• Locate content within virtual
world to inform friends, give
clues in games, give an
‘emotional’ context to items by
expressing opinions. Search for
clues and comments left by
friends
• Reward annotations with virtual
currency
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43. Real world
• Real-world science experiment
based on Galaxy Zoo format
• Crater marking using data from
NASA LRO
• Use My Tiny Planets account
for sign in and performance
tracking
• Reward annotations with
achievements and virtual
currency
• And kudos; kids get to know
they’re doing science for real,
and its going to be used.
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45. Incentives
• Earn Stars to spend on Virtual
Goods, games or videos
• Earn awards that can be seen by
other players in your passport
• Rise in Rank as you perform
targeted activities
• Join the Pro circuit so that your
top scores can be seen by other
players
• Buy Keys, which unlock new
areas and new activities in
which to spend your Stars.
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50. Human-driven semantic content authoring
Incentives and participatory design
Example: Casual games
Example: Virtual worlds
Conclusions
CONCLUSIONS
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51. Summary
• Human contribution is needed for selected tasks in
semantic content authoring.
• Web 2.0 has impressively demonstrated how strong
incentives can foster user participation and create
successful applications.
• Turning semantic content creation tasks into games is
an especially intriguing idea because of the potentially
large amounts of human-produced data that can be
created.
• Challenges are manifold: knowledge corpora,
interesting game design, ensuring uptake, difficulty of
tasks, etc.
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52. Realizing the Semantic Web by
encouraging millions of end-users
8/10/2011 create semantic content.
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