IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cwf/grarti/gr2025267.html

Sustainability of gamified citizen-science platforms in Latin America: gamified and non-gamified initiatives contrasted

Author

Listed:
  • Hermosa Guzmán, Dennyse María Patricia
  • d.hermosa@udla.edu.co
  • López, Medardo Rodríguez
  • Gómez Sánchez, Semiramis Alejandra

Abstract

Citizen-science platforms depend on volunteers who keep contributing, and gamification is often proposed to secure that continuity. This narrative review contrasted what the literature published between 2013 and 2025 in or about Latin America reports on gamified and non-gamified citizen-science initiatives. The core corpus contained 36 studies, 11 gamified and 25 non-gamified, from 7 countries. All gamified studies described game mechanics, but none reported participation beyond its evaluation window in its abstract. Funding and institutional anchoring were reported by 14 non-gamified studies and by none of the gamified ones. Multi-year programs documented hundreds or thousands of contributors, yet participation concentrated in a few users, municipalities and regions, and technology, goal mismatch and funding limited continuity. These patterns suggest that the sustainability of gamified platforms in the region has been designed more than measured. Reporting retention, maintenance status and funding alongside game mechanics would allow direct comparison.

Suggested Citation

  • Hermosa Guzmán, Dennyse María Patricia & d.hermosa@udla.edu.co & López, Medardo Rodríguez & Gómez Sánchez, Semiramis Alejandra, 2025. "Sustainability of gamified citizen-science platforms in Latin America: gamified and non-gamified initiatives contrasted," SAP Gamification and Augmented Reality, South American Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwf:grarti:gr2025267
    DOI: 10.62486/gr2025267
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://southam.pub/journals/files/gr/gr2025267en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.62486/gr2025267?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cwf:grarti:gr2025267. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: South American Publishing Journals Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://southam.pub/journals/gr.php .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.