CTP guidelines 1.0
Definition and Operational Details of the Crowd-to-Paper Model
This document, called “CTP-1.0”, is a template that includes the guiding principles of projects based on the crowd-to-paper model, first applied to Hutchison and Keyes et al., 20241. This document is meant to provide the principles and philosophy of the crowd-to-paper model rather than provide mandatory rules. We invite communities to edit this template to suit their needs.
This model aims to respect the highest principles of community work, ultimately working for a common cause, not primarily driven by personal gain. It is an effort to introduce some structure to make contributing to a community more sustainable. The limited scope in goals and timelines, with co-authorship as a tangible reward, are designed to incentivise a virtuous economy complementary to current crowd-research models.
To know more about this crowd-research model: crowd-to-paper comment
Definition
The crowd-to-paper model is an open-invitation standard to leverage collective expertise to advance science and technology, focused on scope and time. The advancements are realised through a product (e.g. software), scientific investigation (e.g. data analysis), and scientific publications.
The model aims to democratise and enhance research by offering open invitations for collaboration, ensuring inclusiveness, and rewarding contributors with tangible academic (or alternative) benefits.
The four pillars of the crowd-to-paper model are (i) inclusivity, (ii) modularity, (iii) limited scope, and (iv) reward.
Scope and Target Audience
The crowd-to-paper model is designed for research projects that benefit from collaborative, modular tasks, such as software development, data analysis, and systematic reviews. It is particularly effective in non-competitive research areas, prioritising transparency and openness over secrecy. This first implementation is focused on computing and data-science-oriented projects; however, as the Internet of Things develops, open collaboration principles could also be applied to laboratory settings.
The crowd-to-paper is an open-invitation model that has inclusivity as a key principle. The inclusivity applies to seniority, age, gender, geographical location (if possible), religion and ethnic group. Participation typically focuses on individuals with relevant domain expertise or interest in the specific research question. The specific modular tasks open to the community should be created to fit a broad spectrum of expertise levels. This expertise inclusivity principle enables junior researchers, particularly those from underrepresented regions or institutions, to gain experience in high-impact projects and engage in international collaborations while enabling senior researchers to tackle more challenging tasks or review the work of junior contributors.
Contribution Guidelines
Here, we define leadership as composed of the leading team of the study, which includes moderators of the crowd-to-paper initiative, and the contributors as anyone who wishes to self-assign to a specific task of varying complexity based on their expertise and availability.
There should be expectations from the leadership and contributor sides.
The contributor is expected to know and follow the contribution guidelines. The contributor is expected to choose a task compatible with their expertise. There is some flexibility if a senior wishes to supervise a junior contributor; however, being overly ambitious is discouraged to avoid impacting the project negatively. The contributor is expected to respect reasonable timelines clearly stated in the project description. Each task should not be exclusive to a contributor. If multiple contributors are interested in the same task, we encourage a collaborative and non-competitive attitude to task resolution so developers can be more efficient and learn from each other. We encourage contributors to provide a portfolio of their work for complex or critical tasks.
The leadership is expected to follow the contribution guidelines. The leadership should clearly define expectations for contributors, such as coding tasks, data curation, or manuscript drafting. The leadership is expected to reward the contributors with co-authorship in the resulting publication when the contribution has been integrated (or has otherwise brought sufficient value) within the project (e.g. the contribution can be finalised by another contributor until final integration). We encourage communities to be generous rather than restrictive with rewards, applying more stringent criteria only to avoid under-commitment from the contributors (e.g. a contributor self-assigning to a task without making real progress), as ultimately, the overarching principle of collaboration is generosity. Under these principles, the leadership is not expected to accept a contribution (and provide a co-authorship reward) if it cannot be used in any form.
The rewards mainly consist of co-authorship in the resulting publication. Co-authorship ranking is at the discretion of the leadership and, in principle, should reflect the relative contribution of each contributor, tracked by Git. While this reward should always be present, complementary contribution forms such as microgrants are possible. We encourage strategies to balance intrinsic and extrinsic motivations while avoiding the overjustification effect 2–4.
Author Limits
The model does not impose a strict maximum number of contributors but advocates for clear co-authorship policies. Ideally, the acknowledged contributor list is managed by tools like Git contributions tracking.
Governance and Conflict Resolution
Effective governance and conflict resolution are essential to ensuring a productive and respectful collaborative environment in the crowd-to-paper model. A designated moderation team of experienced contributors or project organisers oversees the initiative by setting priorities, maintaining code and writing standards, and addressing potential issues such as inappropriate behaviour or substandard contributions. To resolve conflicts, the model employs clear and transparent protocols, including structured mediation and, if necessary, the removal of problematic participants. An example protocol proposed here is (i) bringing the parties together to discuss the conflict with an impartial mediator, (ii) identifying the root cause of the conflict, and (iii) generating potential solutions. Conflict resolution should be performed following the principles of empathy and entering into each other shoes, where the principle of greater good, independent of one's interest, should prevail. If the conflict cannot be resolved, the leadership should take the ultimate decision fairly, with a public consultation of the broader community if chosen or needed.
The general principles for conflict resolution are using welcoming and inclusive language, respecting differing viewpoints and experiences, gracefully accepting constructive criticism, focusing on what is best for the community and project, and showing empathy towards other community members. Contributions are validated through automated tools, such as continuous integration for code, to ensure that they meet predefined quality standards, while peer review is employed for manuscript contributions. These mechanisms not only uphold the quality and integrity of the project but also provide safeguards to ensure that the open and inclusive nature of the model does not compromise its outcomes.
References
1. Hutchison, W. J. et al. The tidyomics ecosystem: enhancing omic data analyses. Nat. Methods (2024) doi:10.1038/s41592-024-02299-2.