Understanding Factors and Traits to Support Crowdworkers' Flexibility
Abstract
Crowdworkers are drawn to the profession in part due to the flexibility it affords. However, the current design of crowdsourcing platforms limits this flexibility. Therefore, it is important to support the overall flexibility of crowdworkers. Incorporating a variety of device types in the workflow plays an important role in supporting the flexibility of crowdworkers, however each device type requires a tailored workflow. The standard workflow of crowdworkers consists of stages of work such as managing and completing tasks. We hypothesize that there might be differences in factors and characteristics of task completion and task management to support the tailored workflow of different device types. Therefore this dissertation aims to explore and understand the factors and characteristics of task completion and task management on different devices in order to support the overall flexibility of crowdworkers. To achieve this, this dissertation introduces four pivotal innovations : (1) understanding characteristics of task completion and factors affecting the process on smartphones to support the tailored workflow on smartphones in crowdwork (2) understanding of crowdworkers’ current task completion and task management practices and expectations when working on smartphone, tablet, speaker and smartwatch to support the flexibility of crowdworkers on all these devices based on crowdworkers’ work practices and expectations. (3) After a broad understanding of crowdworkers’ practices and expectations across different devices, this thesis identifies the systematic differences among crowdworkers in order to develop customizable support depending on workers’ individual need for flexibility in crowdsourcing platforms (4) Finally, this dissertation looks into other popular crowdsourcing platform named Prolific to understand work practices of Prolific workers as well as compare Prolific with Amazon MTurk to gain a comprehensive understanding of the factors and characteristics that support flexibility in different crowdsourcing environments.
Reference
Senjuti Dutta. 2024. Understanding factors and traits to support crowdworkers' flexibility. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Tennessee.
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