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Increasing Performance via Gamification in a Volunteer-Based Evolutionary Computation System

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Information Processing and Management of Uncertainty in Knowledge-Based Systems. Applications (IPMU 2018)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 855))

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Abstract

Distributed computing systems can be created using volunteers, users who spontaneously, after receiving an invitation, decide to provide their own resources or storage to contribute to a common effort. They can, for instance, run a script embedded in a web page; thus, collaboration is straightforward, but also ephemeral, with resources depending on the amount of time the user decides to lend. This implies that the user has to be kept engaged so as to obtain as many computing cycles as possible. In this paper, we analyze a volunteer-based evolutionary computing system called NodIO with the objective of discovering design decisions that encourage volunteer participation, thus increasing the overall computing power. We present the results of an experiment in which a gamification technique is applied by adding a leader-board showing the top scores achieved by registered contributors. In NodIO, volunteers can participate without creating an account, so one of the questions we wanted to address was if the need to register would have a negative impact on user participation. The experiment results show that even if only a small percentage of users created an account, those participating in the competition provided around 90% of the work, thus effectively increasing the performance of the overall system.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been supported in part by: Ministerio español de Economía y Competitividad under projects TIN2014-56494-C4-3-P (UGR-EPHEMECH) and TIN2017-85727-C4-2-P (UGR-DeepBio).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, Tijuana, BC, Mexico

    Mario García-Valdez & Lucero Lara

  2. Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

    Juan Julian Merelo Guervós

  3. Universidad de Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain

    Pablo García-Sánchez

Authors
  1. Mario García-Valdez
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  2. Juan Julian Merelo Guervós
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  3. Lucero Lara
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  4. Pablo García-Sánchez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mario García-Valdez .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad de Cádiz, Cádiz, Cadiz, Spain

    Jesús Medina

  2. Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Málaga, Spain

    Manuel Ojeda-Aciego

  3. Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

    José Luis Verdegay

  4. Institute for Research and Applications, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

    Irina Perfilieva

  5. LIP6, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, CNRS, Paris, France

    Bernadette Bouchon-Meunier

  6. Iona College, New Rochelle, New York, USA

    Ronald R. Yager

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García-Valdez, M., Merelo Guervós, J.J., Lara, L., García-Sánchez, P. (2018). Increasing Performance via Gamification in a Volunteer-Based Evolutionary Computation System. In: Medina, J., Ojeda-Aciego, M., Verdegay, J., Perfilieva, I., Bouchon-Meunier, B., Yager, R. (eds) Information Processing and Management of Uncertainty in Knowledge-Based Systems. Applications. IPMU 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 855. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91479-4_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91479-4_29

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