This document proposes a "Social Cloud for Volunteer Computing" (SoCVC) to address barriers that volunteer computing projects face in user discovery, engagement, and accountability. It describes how a SoCVC could leverage social networks like Facebook to connect 1% of users to BOINC, increasing eScience resources tremendously compared to current levels. The authors implemented a Facebook application to prototype the SoCVC concept and test performance. Simulation results showed how social incentives like titles for high contributors could encourage increased contribution over time through social influence within networks. An upcoming full release of the SoCVC is planned for late 2012.

1. Experiences in the Design and
Implementation of a Social Cloud for
Volunteer Computing
Ryan Chard, Kris Bubendorfer, Kyle Chard
IEEE eScience 2012

2. Volunteer Computing
Volunteer computing provides a low-cost
alternative for resourcing large scale
projects, by using resources contributed by
the public.
BOINC
Almost 2.5 million users in total
Half a million are actively contributing
BOINC provides ~6.5 petaflops of
computational power to eScience
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3. Volunteer Computing Barriers
Users:
Discovery and selection of projects
Client software installation
Managing multiple accounts
Projects:
Low visibility for new projects
Low levels of active contribution
Anonymous and unaccountable users
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4. Social Networks
Over one billion users now have Facebook
On average, people on Facebook install apps
more than 20 million times every day
Every month, more than 500 million people
use an app on Facebook or experience the
Facebook Platform on other websites
More than 7 million apps and websites are
integrated with Facebook
More than 7 billion hours are spent on
Facebook each month
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5. What if...
1% of Facebook users contributed to BOINC
That would be over ten million people,
compared to the half million current
users.
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6. Social Cloud Computing
A Social Cloud is a resource and service sharing
framework utilizing relationships and policies
established between members of a social
network.
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7. The Social Cloud for Volunteer Computing
(SoCVC)
Single location
Single identity
Familiar environment
Advertising channels
Publicise eScience
Potential to utilise social
information
Implicit incentive
mechanisms
Trust can be inferred
from friends
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8. SoCVC Architecture
1. Discovery and
setup
2. Project
selection
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3. Connect clients
4. Users directed
to projects
3
5. Service polls
information 1
2
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9. Social Assistance
Interest signatures are used to match
users and projects
1. Users define
their own interest
signature
2. Interest
signatures are
calculated from a
user’s friends
3. Project signatures are
calculated from their users 9

10. Social Incentives - Titles
Social titles are given to the “top” users
within a group of friends
Encourages contribution, retention,
and recruitment
Project Champions Social Anchors Compute Magnates
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11. Implementation
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12. Facebook Application
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13. Results - Performance
Datamodels
The time to create,
load and remove
database models
Account Manager
Response creation
with static vs
dynamic signing of
URLs
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14. Results – Compute Magnate Simulation
The VAST dataset includes 6000 individuals and 29,888 relationships
Users are assigned an initial contribution level
Active users (contribution level > 25%) can contact friends to encourage
them to raise their contribution levels.
Modelled contribution and willingness to increase one’s contribution
through a disinterest factor that decays over time.
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15. Summary
What if we did get 1%?
Increase exposure of eScience
Grow the user base for volunteer projects
Increase resources for eScience
Look out for release in Q4 2012
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