Skip to main content

Crowdsourcing


What is crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing is the practice of utilizing the wisdom of a group of people for a common goal. Crowdsourcing can be extremely powerful when used in the right place at the right time. "Though crowdsourcing has been around for a long time, it became popular around the same time as the emergence of commerce, social media, and the smartphone culture" (White, J. 2019). Increased connectivity between people has been the biggest contributor to the growing interest.

How does crowdsourcing work?

"In order to crowdsource effectively, a business must break a larger project into individual micro-tasks. Workers then come together to tackle these micro-tasks in small pieces to expedite the process" (White, J. 2019). This collaborative brainstorming enables thousands of people to contribute their thoughts into a single task. Crowdsourcing uses the Internet task market to connect workers to a job. It enables those workers to take the kinds of jobs they like and complete those jobs when and where they want. Employers can find the kinds of workers they need and pay for only the amount of work they need. 

What are the benefits of crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing has a number of benefits that businesses can leverage to their advantage. "It provides an easy solution for scaling out any workforce by farming out small portions of a project that can be completed by remote workers at any given time or place" (White, J. 2019). Crowdsourcing also provides the ability to access people who have the skill sets that are unavailable within the company. Additionally, crowdsourcing allows businesses to perform tasks more quickly than a single employee and reduces operational costs.

What are some examples of crowdsourcing?

Waze - One of the first examples of crowdsourcing I thought of is the app Waze. The app allows users to report traffic jams and automatically gives directions for the best route to take. Waze crowdsources information by measuring drivers speed to determine traffic jams and by asking users to report road closures.

Lego - Lego allows users to design new products and test the demand. Any user can submit a design that other users can vote on. The idea with the most votes gets moved into production.

Lays - The "Do Us a Flavor" crowdsourcing campaign encouraged customers to create their own flavor of chip and vote on their favorite ones. The winner then went into production.

Netflix - The online video rental service uses crowdsourcing to improve the software algorithms used to offer customer video recommendations.

Resource:

White, J. (2019, July 23). What Is Crowdsourcing and How Does It Work? Definition and Example. TheStreet. https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/education/what-is-crowdsourcing-15026002.


Comments

  1. JFoxxJune 3, 2020 at 7:43 AM

    Leah, thanks for your summary of crowd sourcing! I really enjoyed that you listed several very common ways that crowd sourcing has been used, I am familiar with all of these but had not put them in the context of crowd sourcing. It is really interesting to see how it has been used and it makes me excited to think about all of the innovative ways we can solve problems using crowd sourcing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LeahJune 3, 2020 at 10:10 AM

      You're welcome! There are so many different innovative ways crowdsourcing can be used.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Social Media During a Pandemic

In the face of COVID-19, social media has been a great way for people and communities to stay connected even while physically separated. Just imagine if this pandemic happened 15 years ago. Where would we have been with remote working and schooling from home?  Social media plays a big role in keeping people updated on current events about the pandemic. We have realtime information right at our fingertips in the face of a worldwide event. This information can help keep us safe and provide us with a better understanding of what is happening and how it may impact us. Of course, we have to be careful of spreading false information or getting information from places other than trusted sources. Until a month ago, most of us haven't heard of the term "social distancing" but now it is becoming the main term used in posts across multiple social media platforms. It has influenced the way we respond to others and how we have prepared for the pandemic. Another term I have heard is ...
8 comments
Read more

Instagram in the Classroom

I've been an avid user of Instagram in my personal life but never thought of using the app for a graduate level class. I signed up for a new account (you can follow me @leah_eme6414) and it got me thinking about how Instagram could be used in the classroom as a teacher. Instagram can be a fun and safe social media tool for students if used properly. You probably want to create a separate, private classroom, account and only post class-related things for your students and their parents to see. Once you have your classroom account set up, you can get busy searching related hashtags and posting images right away.  Showcase Student Work Instagram is the perfect way to show off student work to make your students feel proud. Just like teachers often hang up excellent work in the classroom, you can snap a picture and share it to Instagram for your students and parents to see. Find New Ideas Many other teachers have Instagram accounts that you can follow to find new fun ideas. You can find...
5 comments
Read more

Google Earth

Google Earth displays geographic data from a wide variety of sources together in a geospatial context. The data includes imagery for the entire globe and can be useful for educational purposes. Students can use it to find their homes, schools, and other locations familiar to them. They can make inferences by comparing familiar places to other locations. Additionally, students can learn about the world through mappable data and can create and display their own data. In the classroom, Google Earth can be used: to support hands-on inquiry by students in computer classrooms. as a basis for homework assignments. for dynamic presentations during class lectures. for inquiry during class presentations. to create imagery and maps for PowerPoint, Word, and other presentation tools. as a data discovery, organization, and distribution tool for research projects. to enrich discussion of an issue that arises spontaneously during an informal classroom discussion.(How to Teach With Google Earth, 2020)...
4 comments
Read more