In a recent paper, presented at the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), John Horton, Daniel Chen and I used a large-scale experiment to test the effect of different incentive schemes on the quality of crowdsourcing work. The results surprised us. They suggest that workers perform most accurately when the task design credibly… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Economics
For love or for money? A list experiment on the motivations behind crowdsourcing work
What motivates crowdsourcing workers to do what they do? According to some surveys, many of the workers say they’re just in it for the money. However, my friend Judd Antin and I recently ran what’s called a “list experiment” — an awesome twist on a traditional survey — and we found that the reality is… Read more »
Regulating Distributed Work (Part Three: Why It’s a Good Idea)**
In previous posts, I discussed the nature of employment law as it relates to crowd work, and the problems involved in trying to classify crowd workers according to existing categories and in transferring rights of free assembly and collective action into virtual space. Now comes the controversial part: explaining why I think it’d be a good… Read more »
Regulating Distributed Work (Part Two: Free Assembly & Collective Action)
In the last post, I looked briefly at the roots of our existing employment and labor law, and why employment classification presents such a tricky issue in crowd work. For individual workers, being classified a statutory employee is the main hurdle. Once you’re “covered” by a particular law, you’re entitled to its protections unless the… Read more »
Regulating Distributed Work (Part One: Employment Classification)
On May 10th I presented at the Crowdflower Distributed Distributed work Meetup, talking about employment law and regulation. As it turned out, my 15-minute presentation turned into an hour and a half of exploring the legal issues involved in crowd work. The group of clients, workers, and crowdsourcing vendors displayed a real hunger for guidance… Read more »