The Crowdsourcing Design Advisor

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Report Overview

Important Considerations Based on Your Circumstances

The Activity

Tasks

  • This method implies distributing tasks to a community who are more typically self-selected.
  • Tasks typically fall into two categories. Microtasks, which are simple, independent tasks that are part of a larger project and cannot be easily automated; and skilled tasks, multi-hour tasks hosted on professional marketplaces.
  • Quality control remains a key challenge for this kind of activity.
  • One potential complication of crowdsourcing tasks is navigating intellectual property - make sure to think about who retains the property rights of any final output.

Data

  • This activity involves collecting information from a large amount of on-the-ground observers who are more likely to provide a clear picture of an event.
  • Data gathering is particularly successful when needing to fill communications gaps during rapidly developing events.
  • Data is mostly gathered through mechanisms such as SMS text messaging, social media or via website. Establishing multiple mechanisms to report is usually a key condition to success.
  • Although literature suggests it has tremendous potential, the volume of information can present challenges of data mining, verification and prioritizing.

Funds

  • The mechanism used to obtain fund from the crowd, also known as crowdfunding, usually involves an open call for the provision of relatively small contributions from a relatively large number of individuals.
  • One of its advantages is that the mechanism directly connects funders with projects in need of funding, avoiding the traditional slow, multi-step funding processes like grant applications or bank loans.
  • A generally key component for the success of this activity occurs when the crowd feels personally connected to the growth of the initiative, that is, when the motivations of both parties are aligned.

Opinions

  • They key component of this activity is that it has the capacity to leverage the real-time web browsing, and increased overall connectivity around the globe of ordinary citizens.
  • Also named, sentiment analysis, companies have generally used it as a method of automatic detection of negative and positive emotions, opinions and other evaluations in text.
  • A challenge of crowdsourcing opinions is that it is complicated to build software that mines the Internet for opinions and has the ability to interpret that data.
  • Another challenge is the fact that sometimes multiple sentiments are directed at the same or different targets in a single sample.

Ideas

  • Generally, it’s important to have a technology platform that allows you to both ask the right question and filter through the submissions to obtain the answers you’re looking for.
  • The public sector often uses “ideation platforms” to crowdsource ideas. These online platforms provide space for brainstorming and voting to enable the crowd to submit new ideas, search previously submitted ideas, post questions and challenges, discuss and expand on ideas, vote ideas up or down and flag ideas that don’t fit the question.
  • Given the relatively new stages of ideation platforms, institutions and entrepreneurs must acknowledge that, given certain technological constraints, the results they wish to achieve may not be the most sound.
  • One potential complication of crowdsourcing ideas is navigating intellectual property - make sure to think about who retains the property rights of any final output.

Incentives

Financial Incentives

  • Financial incentives are typically provided through a contest dynamic as a prize or in exchange for labor on a specific activity.
  • Financial incentives are particularly effective when crowdsourcing tasks. However, the amount offered for the task can matter. Paying a larger amount for a specific number of tasks as opposed to paying a small amount per task increases the quality of the output.
  • Some studies have shown financial rewards can have a negative effect on creative results. Therefore, whether to include a financial reward should be an important consideration for tasks that are intended to be more creative.

Knowledge Building

  • Usually, the users that participate are part of an active community who value the creation and maintenance of content.
  • Participants value being potential authors and editors and authoring articles co-creatively.
  • Although creating and sustaining collaborative knowledge building is seen as an opportunity for growing and accumulating knowledge in a specific field, it can also be described as a constant work-in-progress which needs consistent feeding and maintenance.

Skill Development

  • Crowdsourcing participants can be motivated by skill development incentives for reasons that relate to both career opportunities as well as simple interest in a particular subject or activity.
  • Skill development incentives often require the participant to undergo some sort of training or online tutorial to learn the new skill.
  • The crowd that is often motivated to build a portfolio for future employment is people who have a particular interest but are trying to gain expertise in that area.

Community Building

  • People who are willing to undertake activities for community building usually do so because they want to contribute to a large cause/project with individuals who have similar priorities
  • Communicating exactly how their contributions will impact the common cause is key. This is particularly important in order to avoid false expectations.
  • Generally, the greater the perceived impact of the crowd, the more they will be willing to participate and commit their time to the cause/project.

Civic Responsibility

  • Altruism is cited as one of the main motivations of citizen volunteers.
  • A participatory culture enhances increases public/citizen engagement and those individuals have a greater stake in the advancement of an issue or set of issues.
  • Civic responsibility eases perceived barriers between a government, advocates, and the public and will enhance communication between all parties involved.

Public Recognition

  • Individuals are more likely motivated to contribute when they perceive that peers are valuing their contribution.
  • Usually, recognition is earned by the crowd voting on or rating their peers or by reaching specific milestones in order to acquire a special status.
  • If the recognition is going to be earned by granting the user a specific status, it is usually recommended to pay special attention to having clear rules of participation.

Competition

  • Individuals are often motivated to challenge themselves to solve a tough problem.
  • Successful methods for foster competition among members of the crow often have the characteristics of gamification, which applies game-like characteristics to non-game settings in order to drive audience engagement and help them have fun at the same time.
  • Sometimes competition is fostered by turning the activity into a game, but it isn’t a required element.

The Crowd

Limit Participation to a Defined Community

  • Being more selective with the type of crowd you want to engage for participation may generate higher quality in the performance.
  • A common example of this kind of barrier to entry takes the form of a credential-based approach, i.e, a crowd made up of lawyers, or licensed physicians, etc, but it is difficult to use this type of limitation when the crowd is anonymous.
  • Limiting participation to a specific set of users usually presents the challenge of developing a mechanism that has the ability to verify the crowd-characteristics you are looking for.

Anyone Willing to Participate

  • Allowing anyone to participate is generally recommended when there is no obvious combination of skills needed to find a solution.
  • A benefit to allowing anyone to participate is the size of the crowd - larger crowds may be able accomplish tasks at a faster rate.
  • Usually, when everyone can participate quality control is commonly controlled through contests, where you, a group of experts, or the crowd itself can select the winner.

Technology / Platform

Mobile

  • Allowing anyone to participate is generally recommended when there is no obvious combination of skills needed to find a solution.
  • A benefit to allowing anyone to participate is the size of the crowd - larger crowds may be able accomplish tasks at a faster rate.
  • Usually, when everyone can participate quality control is commonly controlled through contests, where you, a group of experts, or the crowd itself can select the winner.

Website

  • Allowing anyone to participate is generally recommended when there is no obvious combination of skills needed to find a solution.
  • A benefit to allowing anyone to participate is the size of the crowd - larger crowds may be able accomplish tasks at a faster rate.
  • Usually, when everyone can participate quality control is commonly controlled through contests, where you, a group of experts, or the crowd itself can select the winner.

SMS

  • Allowing anyone to participate is generally recommended when there is no obvious combination of skills needed to find a solution.
  • A benefit to allowing anyone to participate is the size of the crowd - larger crowds may be able accomplish tasks at a faster rate.
  • Usually, when everyone can participate quality control is commonly controlled through contests, where you, a group of experts, or the crowd itself can select the winner.

Social Media

  • Allowing anyone to participate is generally recommended when there is no obvious combination of skills needed to find a solution.
  • A benefit to allowing anyone to participate is the size of the crowd - larger crowds may be able accomplish tasks at a faster rate.
  • Usually, when everyone can participate quality control is commonly controlled through contests, where you, a group of experts, or the crowd itself can select the winner.

Emails

  • Allowing anyone to participate is generally recommended when there is no obvious combination of skills needed to find a solution.
  • A benefit to allowing anyone to participate is the size of the crowd - larger crowds may be able accomplish tasks at a faster rate.
  • Usually, when everyone can participate quality control is commonly controlled through contests, where you, a group of experts, or the crowd itself can select the winner.

Quality Control

You

  • Based on your choice, the activity performed by the crowd will have a high level of quality control since you or a group of experts will review the final output.

Group of Experts

  • This kind of quality control is usually recommended for activities that require a higher level of expertise or that require complex technical abilities.

Voting

  • Based on your choice, it is suggested that the activity you want the crowd to perform requires lower levels of quality control since you will have no part in the rating or selection.
  • This kind of quality control works well when crowdsourcing ideas or opinions, because it allows the crowd to prioritize the crowdsourced output.

Prioritizing

  • Based on your choice, the activity performed by the crowd will have a high level of quality control since you or a group of experts will review the final output.
  • This kind of quality control is usually recommended for activities that require a higher level of expertise or that require complex technical abilities.

Peer-Reviewed

  • Based on your choice, the activity performed by the crowd will have a high level of quality control since you or a group of experts will review the final output.
  • This kind of quality control is usually recommended for activities that require a higher level of expertise or that require complex technical abilities.

No Quality Control

  • Based on your choice, you may be engaging in an activity that does not require quality control, such as crowdfunding.

Case Studies

All

Learn More

Passionate about the uses of Crowdsourcing in the Public Sector? Visit The GovLab Academy for additional content to help you get started in your own crowdsourcing project or contact us at crowdsourcing@thegovlab.org, we are happy to help!