Docent: Transforming personal intuitions to scientific hypotheses through content learning and process training

Vineet Pandey; Justine Debelius; Embriette R. Hyde; Tomasz Kosciolek; Rob Knight; Scott Klemmer

doi:10.1145/3231644.3231646

Docent: Transforming personal intuitions to scientific hypotheses through content learning and process training

Vineet Pandey, Justine Debelius, Embriette R. Hyde, Tomasz Kosciolek, Rob Knight, Scott Klemmer

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract

People's lived experiences provide intuitions about health. Can they transform these personal intuitions into testable hypotheses that could inform both science and their lives? This paper introduces an online learning architecture and provides system principles for people to brainstorm causal scientific theories. We describe the Learn-Train-Ask workflow that guides participants through learning domain-specific content, process training to frame their intuitions as hypotheses, and collaborating with anonymous peers to brainstorm related questions. 344 voluntary online participants from 27 countries created 399 personally-relevant questions about the human microbiome over 4 months, 75 (19%) of which microbiome experts found potentially scientifically novel. Participants with access to process training generated hypotheses of better quality. Access to learning materials improved the questions' microbiome-specific knowledge. These results highlight the promise of performing personally-meaningful scientific work using massive online learning systems.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450358866
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3231644.3231646
State	Published - Jun 26 2018
Externally published	Yes
Event	5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018 - London, United Kingdom Duration: Jun 26 2018 → Jun 28 2018

Publication series

Name	Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018

Conference

Conference	5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018
Country/Territory	United Kingdom
City	London
Period	6/26/18 → 6/28/18

Keywords

Citizen Science
Online Learning
Social Computing Systems

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computer Networks and Communications
Education
Software
Computer Science Applications

Access to Document

10.1145/3231644.3231646

Cite this

Pandey, V., Debelius, J., Hyde, E. R., Kosciolek, T., Knight, R., & Klemmer, S. (2018). Docent: Transforming personal intuitions to scientific hypotheses through content learning and process training. In Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018 Article 9 (Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018). Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1145/3231644.3231646

Docent: Transforming personal intuitions to scientific hypotheses through content learning and process training. / Pandey, Vineet; Debelius, Justine; Hyde, Embriette R. et al.
Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2018. 9 (Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Pandey, V, Debelius, J, Hyde, ER, Kosciolek, T, Knight, R & Klemmer, S 2018, Docent: Transforming personal intuitions to scientific hypotheses through content learning and process training. in Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018., 9, Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018, London, United Kingdom, 6/26/18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3231644.3231646

Pandey V, Debelius J, Hyde ER, Kosciolek T, Knight R, Klemmer S. Docent: Transforming personal intuitions to scientific hypotheses through content learning and process training. In Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. 2018. 9. (Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018). doi: 10.1145/3231644.3231646

Pandey, Vineet ; Debelius, Justine ; Hyde, Embriette R. et al. / Docent : Transforming personal intuitions to scientific hypotheses through content learning and process training. Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2018. (Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L at S 2018).

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abstract = "People's lived experiences provide intuitions about health. Can they transform these personal intuitions into testable hypotheses that could inform both science and their lives? This paper introduces an online learning architecture and provides system principles for people to brainstorm causal scientific theories. We describe the Learn-Train-Ask workflow that guides participants through learning domain-specific content, process training to frame their intuitions as hypotheses, and collaborating with anonymous peers to brainstorm related questions. 344 voluntary online participants from 27 countries created 399 personally-relevant questions about the human microbiome over 4 months, 75 (19%) of which microbiome experts found potentially scientifically novel. Participants with access to process training generated hypotheses of better quality. Access to learning materials improved the questions' microbiome-specific knowledge. These results highlight the promise of performing personally-meaningful scientific work using massive online learning systems.",

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AB - People's lived experiences provide intuitions about health. Can they transform these personal intuitions into testable hypotheses that could inform both science and their lives? This paper introduces an online learning architecture and provides system principles for people to brainstorm causal scientific theories. We describe the Learn-Train-Ask workflow that guides participants through learning domain-specific content, process training to frame their intuitions as hypotheses, and collaborating with anonymous peers to brainstorm related questions. 344 voluntary online participants from 27 countries created 399 personally-relevant questions about the human microbiome over 4 months, 75 (19%) of which microbiome experts found potentially scientifically novel. Participants with access to process training generated hypotheses of better quality. Access to learning materials improved the questions' microbiome-specific knowledge. These results highlight the promise of performing personally-meaningful scientific work using massive online learning systems.

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Docent: Transforming personal intuitions to scientific hypotheses through content learning and process training

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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Cite this