Browsing by Subject "Crowdsourcing"
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Item Bike, Bus, and Beyond: Extending Cyclopath to Enable Multi- Modal Routing(Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2013-07) Terveen, LorenThis project addressed several MnDOT critical issues and strategic directions: easing congestion and improving mobility by making multi-modal transit options more easily accessible. It did so by extending the Cyclopath bicycle route-finding system to support multi-modal routes that combine cycling and transit. This required extensions to the route-finding algorithm – to combine biking and transit appropriately – and user interface – to let users express modal preferences and enhance the visual presentation of routes, e.g., to mark mode shifts. We used the Graphserver open-source software to as the routing engine; by building on existing software, we reduced development effort. We conducted interviews with a number of multimodal transit users to guide the design of the user interface.Item Efficiency of Digital Enabled Business Platforms: a Perspective from Understanding User Behavior(2017-04) GU, ZHUOJUNAbstract: Advancements in information technology give birth to a wide variety of digital enabled business platforms. Commonly used online platforms range from online auction sites to mobile gaming apps. Users’ bidding strategies and gaming behavior under these particular online settings are quite different from those under the traditional scenarios. This dissertation empirically examines user behavior in two digital enabled platform scenarios, namely, the eBay auctions site and a social mobile game app. I aim to understand the impact of online user behavior on the platform efficiency as well as how platform settings affect usage outcome. In my first essay, I address the impact of bidders’ use of the sniping strategy on the efficiency of the eBay auction site by looking at the bidder welfare. Using a unique data set that contains the full bidding history for Xbox 360 consoles on eBay over a period of 5 years, I was able to examine the impact of sniping strategy on auction prices and bidder surplus. The key results indicate that contrary to popular belief, snipers may not be bargain hunters. Rather, they are value shoppers and often pay higher prices as compared to non-snipers. But overall, bidders do benefit from snipping as they get higher surplus. The results also indicate that higher prices due to higher reputation, a well-established result in the literature, are mediated by attracting snipers and/or higher number of bidders in an auction. Finally, I find evidence that bidders’ strategic behavior becomes more evident at a higher stake value. These findings show that the sniping strategy not only improves the bidder welfare by increasing their winning surplus, but also the increased auction ending price is indicative of increased seller welfare. Thus, the use of sniping strategy by bidders actually increases the total efficiency of the eBay auction platform. In my second essay, I explore the efficacy of crowdsourcing features on enhancing user engagement and retention in the context of mobile gaming apps. To do so, I examine two specific crowdsourcing features, namely, the ability to contribute content and the ability to access crowdsourced content. Under a 2×2 factorial design, I assess the impact of these crowdsourcing features on usage outcomes via a randomized field experiment. In our experiment, I also examine the underlying mechanisms that lead to the main observed effects. Interestingly, I find that even without contributing content, users exhibited heightened user engagement and retention when they are given the option to contribute gaming content to the app. Results also show that the positive effect of content access on user retention only materializes when users are actually exposed to crowdsourced content. In particular, results show that the content contribution feature reduces users’ hazard of ending a session and abandoning the app by 11% and 14% respectively. Moreover, the largest improvement in user retention is achieved when users are able to contribute content and view crowdsourced content from the community. Finally, I find heterogeneous treatment effects in our study setting: crowdsourcing features tend to enhance the retention of heavy game players, while they heighten the engagement level of casual gamers.Item Engaging Teachers in Innovation: A Bottom Up Perspective from Two Districts(2018-12) Schuttinger, KevinPublic schools in the 21st century face many challenges, from recruiting and retaining high-quality staff in an era high teacher attrition, meeting the needs of students in a rapidly changing world, and adapting to ever changing demands from local, state and federal stakeholders. School are challenged to be more nimble and innovative, but they are often saddled with organizational structures which hinder innovation. This study explores the experiences of teachers in two school districts working to change this paradigm. The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze teachers’ experiences in a participatory innovation process, and to explore whether and how this participation affected teachers’ perceptions of themselves personally and professionally. This study employed grounded theory methods and aimed to illuminate the effects such processes may have had on teachers and schools. The primary findings of this study are that participatory innovation processes, when employed in public school districts, can promote teacher empowerment, foster connections between staff and administration, and contribute to increased organizational and professional commitment among teachers who participate.Item Motion Analysis through Crowd-Sourced Assessment and Feature Design with Applications to Surgical Technical Skill Evaluation(2018-06) French, AnnaSurgical technical skill has a direct impact on patient health outcomes. Robotic surgical procedures present an opportunity for motion analysis-based skill assessment due to their readily available data streams detailing all manner of measurements about the tool motion. This proposes features that can help discern degrees of surgical skill. It also analyzes the importance of background contextual information in videos of surgical procedures, with regard to a crowd-sourced rater's ability to rate a surgeon's ability when background contextual information from a procedure is removed.Item Techniques for improving routing by exploiting user input and behavior(2014-10) Torre, FernandoThis dissertation explores innovative techniques for improving the route finding process. Instead of focusing on improving the algorithm itself, I aim to improve the other factors that make the route finding experience better: personalization, map data, and presentation. I do so by making extensive use of user input (both explicit and implicit) and crowdsourcing strategies. This research uses Cyclopath, a geowiki for cyclists in the Twin Cities, MN, as a case study for the various techniques explored.The first challenge is the lack of personalization in route finding algorithms. Aside from start and end points, algorithms usually know very little about users. However, user preferences can greatly affect their ideal routes. I studied the use of community-shared tags that allow users to specify preferences for those tags instead of doing so for each individual road segment, allowing them to easily express preference for a large number of roads with little effort. Correlation between individual road segment ratings and ratings deduced from tag preferences was evidence of the utility of this technique for making personalization easier.The second challenge is missing data. The best routing algorithm is only as good as the map data underneath it. Unfortunately, maps are often incomplete. They might not have updates on the latest construction, might be missing roads in rural areas or might not include detailed information such as lanes, trails, and even shortcuts. I present an HMM-based map matching algorithm that uses GPS traces recorded by users to generate potential new road segments. Tests within Cyclopath confirmed the abundance of missing roads and the ability of this algorithm to detect them.Finally, I look at the issue of unnatural presentation of routes. The way computers relay route directions is very different from humans, who use landmarks most of the time. However, gathering useful landmarks can be difficult and is often limited to points of interest. In this research, I tested methods for crowdsourcing different types of landmarks. I show that POIs are not sufficient to represent landmarks and that there is no objective truth regarding which landmarks are more useful to users.