The MGS Blog

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Exercise: What is Crowdsourcing?


Goal
Come up with a working definition of crowdsourcing.

Comments
Can be run in groups or as class exercise with someone writing up definitions and examples on blackboard. There are no wrong answers, just build up a list, tabulate and provide back to the class

Instructions
1. Ask members of the class to brainstorm the meaning of crowdsourcing. (3 minutes)
2. Write down and display this list of definitions and examples.

Definitions
Quotes below from (Howe, 2008).
"Crowdsourcing isn't a single strategy. It's an umbrella term for a highly varied group of approaches that share one obvious attribute in common: they all depend on some contribution from the crowd."

"A community that forms around a shared interest, shared passion, hobby, craft"
"When a company takes something that was once performed by employees and outsources in the form of an open call to a large group of undefined group of people, generally using the internet"

"Crowdsourcing is Wikipedia with 'everything'"
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Examples
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References:
  • Howe, J. (2008) Crowdsourcing: Why the power of the crowd is driving the future of business.
  • Crowd-sourced gamers advance AIDS research (link) By Ben Coxworth, 16:45 September 20, 2011