e-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates

Crowdsourcing

Since 2000s Internet has leveraged the collective intelligence online which facilitates development of businesses, product design, communication, etc. Nowadays various non-profit and business ogranisations, government agencies and state-run enterprises can not imagine their every day activities without Internet. Exactly this interaction between top-down and bottom-up parties with organizational aims is called crowdsourcing. It has been booming since several years for it sees the significance in such innovation which supports research and sharing ideas.

The term “crowdsourcing” was coined by Jeff Howe in 2006. It joins two words “outsourcing” and “crowd” and it is defined as an online problem-solving process leading to reaching an organizational aim (Daren C. Brabham, 2013). The key idea in crowdsourcing is the process done between the top-down organisations and bottom-up public. This sharing or roles with its power between these two parties makes the process different from other processes for collecting data or opinion. An importance skill in using crowdsourcing is selection of the genuine/authentic data.

Brabham, D. C. (2013). Crowdsourcing. Mit Press.