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Exploring the Connection between Digital Communities, Sustainability and Citizen Science

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 13874

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Fernando Loizides

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Guest Editor

School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
Interests: human–computer interaction; accessibility; information interaction

Dr. Marie Davidová

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Guest Editor

The Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture (IntCDC), University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
Interests: systemic design; more-than-human perspective; prototyping; DIY culture; digital culture; citizen design science
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Dermott McMeel

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Guest Editor

Department of Creative Technologies, AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand
Interests: social, organisational and cultural disruption that technology causes in the built environment

Dr. Shanu Sharma

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Guest Editor

Department of Design, School of Architecture and Planning Bhopal, Bhopal, India
Interests: complex system design; gaming and simulations; research methods; citizen sciences; design futures; collective intelligence; collaboration network

Dr. Kathryn Jones

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Guest Editor

School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
Interests: communications networks; emerging technology; software engineering and sustainability; citizen science

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of the journal will focus on the connection that exists between digital communities, sustainability, and citizen science. The three way relationships between people, places (digital or physical) and means (tools) will be questioned and brought to the forefront.

Digital innovation has recently accelerated rapidly and is constantly creating new avenues of what we can call industrial revolutions through game changing opportunities and capabilities to transform industries, occupations, relationships, and social norms. Diverse communities are brought together by specific common interests, forming virtual groups at an unprecedented rate. This does naturally lead to more inclusive societies. Diversity, advances, and rapid change often from grassroots approaches but can also lead to challenges. These challenges manifest in the form of security, organizational inequality, privacy, scalability, and even politics, to name a few. Harnessing the knowledge of the past and cross-examining state of the art research producing a transparent principles-led approach can lead to responsible, scalable, and sustainable innovation.

Digital culture and communities will be brought to the forefront in this Special Issue. At the heart of the digital transformation is that of representation of the person and the people, their values, and the reasons why we do what we do. Without need or want for creating (Yana Boeva, Peter Troxler. Makers. Handb. Peer Prod., Wiley; 2020, p. 225–37. https://doi.org/10.100/9781119537151.ch17) there is nothing to sustain. We aim to call for work that examines techniques like digitally supported alternative modes of collaboration and commerce for planetary care and custodianship (Kate Raworth. Doughnut economics: seven ways to think like a 21st-century economist. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2017). Technology, used within our digital communities, produces methods and tactics supporting community interaction (Chris Speed, Deborah Maxwell. Designing through value constellations. interactions 22.5 (2015): 38–43.) as well as giving our communities tremendous empowerment over traditional and established powerhouses. These empowerments produce disruptive abilities to communities that may influence sustainable trajections (André Betzer, Jan Philipp Harries. If He's Still in, I'm Still in! How Reddit Posts Affect Gamestop Retail Trading. 2021). These types of advances include technologies, methods and tactics to support alternatives to ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Shoshana Zuboff. Surveillance capitalism and the challenge of collective action. New labor forum. Vol. 28. No. 1. Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA, USA, SAGE Publications, 2019). Furthermore, communities that would have otherwise been neglected or powerless can now be ethically sustained by champions acting on their behalf through integration into their own digital communities (Marie Davidová, Shanu Sharma, Dermott McMeel, Fernando Loizides. Co-De|GT: The gamification and tokenization of more-than-human qualities and values. Sustainability 2022, 14, 3787.).

It is because there is considerable uncertainty and lack of direction about what digital innovation means for people’s lives and those of future generations that we invite a Special Issue of the Sustainability journal exploring, through applied and theoretical constructs, the people, the places, and the means by which digital communities interact to create a sustainable future.

Dr. Fernando Loizides
Dr. Marie Davidová
Dr. Dermott McMeel
Dr. Shanu Sharma
Dr. Kathryn Jones
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

citizen engagement
active participation
collaboration strategies
human factors in digital communities
gamification
community involvements in tools for good
ethical issues in digital communities
security and privacy issues in digital communities
citizen science methodologies
advanced technologies for digital collaborations
user incentivisation

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 1480 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Young Saudis’ Evaluations and Perceptions of Privacy in Digital Communities: The Case of WhatsApp and Telegram

by Sharifah Sharar Aldalbahi and Abdulmohsen Saud Albesher

Sustainability 2023, 15(14), 11286; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151411286 - 20 Jul 2023

Viewed by 1528

Abstract

Digital communities have gained increasing popularity in the past decade. However, they have put users at security risks, especially when they neglect to pay attention to the privacy statement and privacy settings. Therefore, digital community platforms must provide clear privacy statements and usable privacy settings. This research aims to evaluate the usability of privacy on WhatsApp and Telegram from the perspective of young Saudis. A total of 51 young Saudis participated in remote usability testing, followed by questionnaires and interviews. The results showed some privacy concerns in the two apps. Specifically, there are differences in the youths’ evaluation of the perceived privacy of the participants, with females seeing WhatsApp as more secure than the Telegram App. In the end, some recommendations for improving the privacy policy and settings for each app are discussed to ensure the safety and confidentiality of users’ information. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring the Connection between Digital Communities, Sustainability and Citizen Science)

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15 pages, 795 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Technological Affordance and the Realities of Citizen Science Projects Developed in Challenging Territories

by Fábio Grigoletto, Fernanda Antunes de Oliveira, Caio Caradi Momesso, Ibrahim Kamel Rodrigues Nehemy, João Emílio de Almeida Junior, Vinícius de Avelar São Pedro, Roberto Greco, Mário Aquino Alves and Tim Edwards

Sustainability 2023, 15(8), 6654; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15086654 - 14 Apr 2023

Viewed by 1590

Abstract

Citizen science has established itself as an important approach to the co-production of knowledge and public participation in scientific research. Combined with digital technologies and online tools, the approach has been celebrated as a path toward the democratization of science. However, only a few studies have investigated the role digital technologies play in shaping interactions between people and nature. Additionally, the role of context in shaping online and face-to-face participation in citizen science projects has yet to receive much attention. This article takes a citizen science initiative in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest in the state of São Paulo as an illustrative case of the emergence of unanticipated consequences of digital technologies. The emergence of a socio-material practice of animal identification through a popular instant-messaging app is described, allowing a better understanding of the role of digital technologies and the context framing citizen participation in challenging environments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring the Connection between Digital Communities, Sustainability and Citizen Science)

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24 pages, 3895 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Measuring Resident Participation in the Renewal of Older Residential Communities in China under Policy Change

by Jiaqi Wu, Wenbo Li, Wenting Xu and Lin Yuan

Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 2751; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032751 - 2 Feb 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2344

Abstract

There is a growing global trend to encourage citizen participation in solving urban problems, and there is worldwide consensus that the public voice needs to be considered. This study uses an extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to focus on the factors influencing resident engagement following changes in renewal strategies in older residential communities in China. Empirical analysis was carried out based on structural equation modeling (SEM) of a completed questionnaire with 865 respondents. The results showed that Neighborhood Relations (NR) had a positive impact on Participation Attitude (PA); both PA and Awareness Participation (AP) had a positive effect on Self-evaluation (SE), and SE and AP had a positive impact on Participation Guarantee (PG). A survey was also conducted on residents’ concerns and perceptions of the redevelopment of the old neighborhood, analyzing the current issues of residents’ more significant concerns. It showed that public emergencies can affect residents’ inherent perceptions. This study enriches the China-specific focus of the issue and is a reference for similar studies in the future. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring the Connection between Digital Communities, Sustainability and Citizen Science)

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15 pages, 939 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Healthcare Built Environment and Telemedicine Practice for Social and Environmental Sustainability

by Chongling Sun, Evangelia Chrysikou, Eleftheria Savvopoulou, Eva Hernandez-Garcia and Ava Fatah gen. Schieck

Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 2697; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032697 - 2 Feb 2023

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2456

Abstract

The practice of telemedicine started at the beginning of the 20th century but has never been widely implemented, even though it is significantly sustainable compared to traveling to healthcare However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic pushed organisations and patients to accept this technology. During the pandemic, telemedicine consultations took place in ad hoc environments without much preparation and planning. As a result, there is a knowledge gap in the field between telemedicine’s clinical care services and healthcare built environment, in terms of design. This research focused on addressing the quality of service and experience of telemedicine in primary healthcare settings and how this could be influenced by the digital infrastructure. Our aim was to understand the correlations between telemedicine and healthcare built environment and whether the latter could have a significant impact on telemedicine practice. The methodology included interviews with professionals involved in healthcare planning, architecture and ethnography, and end user research involving telemedicine sessions. The interviews highlighted that professionals involved in the design of healthcare environments demonstrated limited consideration of telemedicine environments. Yet, the ethnographic, end-user research identified areas where the telemedicine environment could affect user experience and should be taken into consideration in the design of such spaces. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring the Connection between Digital Communities, Sustainability and Citizen Science)

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19 pages, 647 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Social Commerce Acceptance after Post COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Women Customers: A Multi-Group Analysis of Customer Age

by Abdulrahman Andijani and Kyeong Kang

Sustainability 2022, 14(16), 10213; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610213 - 17 Aug 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1911

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has formed a new reality for customers around the world. In response to this situation, users of digital technologies are facing the necessity to adopt and use specific technologies almost overnight. This research aims to examine the determinants of social (s)-commerce acceptance in Saudi female customers in a post-pandemic era. Utilizing the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTUAT2) and social commerce constructs as a theoretical framework under the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine the antecedents of purchase intention and s-commerce use behavior of Saudi female customers. Moreover, using individual differences in the literature, we test the moderating role of customer age on their purchase intention and use behavior. Data were obtained from 475 Saudi women customers. Our results indicate that performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, price value, and habit are significantly predicting customer purchase intention. Furthermore, social commerce constructs are important to improve customer trust, which in turn influences purchase intention. The results also show that the effects of facilitating conditions, price value, and habit vary on purchase intention and use behavior because of the customer age profiles. Finally, this paper represents important insights for researchers, service providers, marketers, and policymakers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring the Connection between Digital Communities, Sustainability and Citizen Science)

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Other

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35 pages, 834 KiB

Open AccessSystematic Review

Blogged into the System: A Systematic Review of the Gamification in e-Learning before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic

by Mihai Burlacu, Claudiu Coman and Maria Cristina Bularca

Sustainability 2023, 15(8), 6476; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15086476 - 11 Apr 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2513

Abstract

Gamification is becoming more relevant, especially after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine. The purpose of our paper is to analyse the changes which occurred in the effects of gamification on e-learning as a result of the COVID-19 quarantine emergence in the spring of 2020. This paper describes the scientific contributions about the game elements most frequently implemented and their effects on those that use e-learning platforms, as well as the factors that contribute to the development of effective gamification in e-learning before and during the pandemic. Drawing upon the PRISMA framework, a number of 103 articles were identified in two databases: the Web of Science and Scopus. This paper discusses the previous works associated with the corpus of knowledge built around gamification in the past decade. This research shows that before the COVID-19 pandemic, even though many papers were written on gamification in education prior to 2019, there is a trend regarding the multiple mentions of using storylines, challenges, or badges in order to create and maintain competition among users, which in turn may influence and increase the level of social interactions and the coalescence of communities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring the Connection between Digital Communities, Sustainability and Citizen Science)

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