Bjorn Hartmann · UC Berkeley
Feedback, Monitoring, and Free Snacks: Management Techniques for Crowd Work

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In this talk , I will present an overview of recent crowdsourcing work in my research group. Specifically, I will present three approaches to improve work quality and increase the complexity of work that can be completed on paid microtask platforms: 1) Our work on the Shepherd system demonstrates how timely feedback and self-assessment can lead to better work and higher worker perseverance. 2) Our Turkomatic system recruits crowd workers to aid requesters in planning and solving complex jobs. Requesters can view the status of workflows in real time; intervene to change tasks and solutions; and request new solutions to subtasks from the crowd. 3) Finally, I will introduce an alternative mechanism for crowdsourcing tasks that require specialized knowledge or skill from workers: communitysourcing - the use of physical kiosks to elicit work from specific populations.

Björn Hartmann is an Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley in EECS, Computer Science division. He received a BA in Communication, BSE in Digital Media Design, and MSE in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2009. His research in Human-Computer Interaction focuses on the creation and evaluation of design tools, end-user programming environments, and crowdsourcing systems. He is a co-recipient of Best Paper awards at ACM CHI and UIST in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2012.