These slides contain Crowdsourcing tools, successful crowd-sourcing projects. It also discusses some specific applications of crowdsourcing technologies to journalism or the broader field of data gathering.

1. HABTAMU DUGO
CROWDSOURCING

2. What is crowdsourcing?
• Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem solving
and production model.
• Users--also known as the crowd--typically form online
communities based on the website, and the crowd
submits solutions to the site or produce its contents.
• The crowd can also sort through the solutions, finding
the best ones.
• These best solutions are then owned by the entity that
broadcast the problem in the first place--the
crowdsourcer
• The winning individuals in the crowd are sometimes
rewarded.
• Many individuals in the crowd participate just for
intellectual stimulation or because of emotional ties to
product or service

3. Definition
 Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks,
traditionally performed by an employee or contractor,
to an undefined, large group of people or community
(a "crowd"), through an open call.
 The term “crowdsourcing” was coined by journalist Jeff Howe in a 2006
Wired magazine article, which established that the concept of
crowdsourcing depends essentially on the fact that because it is an open
call to an undefined group of people, it gathers those who are most fit to
perform tasks, solve complex problems and contribute with the most
relevant and fresh ideas.
 For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology,
carry out a design task (also known as community-based design[1] or
"design by democracy" and distributed participatory design), refine or
carry out the steps of an algorithm (see human-based computation), or
help capture, systematize or analyze large amounts of data (see also
citizen science).

4. Video: Crowdsourcing Explained

5. Elements of the Crowd

6.  Journalism Schools
 Organizations
 Individuals
 Corporations
 Governments
 Non-profit
 Startups
Who Can Use Crowdsourcing?

7. Some Applications of
Crowdsourcing• Testing & Refining a Product
 Netflix uses crowdsourcing techniques to improve the
software algorithms used to offer customers video
recommendations for the prize of $1 million for the
winner.
 SellaBand allows artists to create a profile and start
raising funds for their music.
• Market Research
 Threadless allows users to score designs and submit
design.
Knowledge Management
• Accenture provides management consulting.
• Wikipedia invites largely anonymous volunteers to
write collaboratively without pay.

8. • Customer Service
• My Starbucks Ideas solicits product,
experience and involvement ideas.
• Open Source Software Development
• Linux and Open Office
• R & D
• InnoCentive
• P&G Connect & Develop
• Polling andVoting
• InTrade??
• Building a new city??
Some Application of Crowdsourcing

9. Economics & WikinomicsEnterpriseWeb2.0
Utility
# of Contributors
Expert
$$$$
Masses
$
10 100 1000 10,000+
4,000 experts
80,000 articles
200 years to develop
Annual Updates
“8.8/10.0 Reliability”
100,000 amateurs
1.6 Million articles
5 years to develop
Real-Time Updates
“8.0/10.0 Reliability”

10.  Ushahidi
collaborated with
citizen journalists
to map incidents
of violence in post-
election Kenya in
2008 and is now
used around the
world to map
violence.
Applications of Crowdsourcing to
Journalism, Media and Film

11.  CicadaTrackers WYNC’s
data team partnered
with NPR RadioLab’s
project dubbed
“Mapping
Swarmageddon.” They
distributed sensors to
the crowd from CT to GA
to alert scientists when
they saw cicadas
emerge—predict their
arrival.
 This was a very
Application of Crowdsourcing to
Journalism

12.  Stop and FriskWatch App for iPhone and
Android (Available in English and Spanish)
 The NewYork Civil Liberties Union launched the app “
to empower NewYorkers to monitor police activity
and hold NYP accountable for unlawful stop-and-frisk
encounters and other police misconduct.”
 The App has three primary functions: record, listen,
and report.
 NYCLU reports a success because the app was
downloaded over 30,000 times.
Application of Crowdsourcing to
Journalism….

13.  Times and the Lede Blog
 Times took journalistic crowdsourcing to the next level by
inviting members of the crowd at the scene of the Boston
Marathon bombing to verify information in frozen
frames.
 Times assigned editors and reporters vet the videos and
themselves first by finding the people in the video and
then asking the crowd to help them find the rest:
 “Were you or someone you know at the Marathon finish
line?”
 4 of the 19 verified accounts came from the crowd.
Application of Crowdsourcing to
Journalism…

14.  The Guardian’s MP Expenses
Scandals Experiment
 Shoveled public record onto a
simple feedback interface and
enlisted more than 20,000
volunteers to help them “find
needles in the haystack.”
 170, 000 documents reviewed
in the first 80 hours.
 This large scale crowdsourcing
costThe Guardian only £ 50 to
rent temporary severs.
 This job was impossible to do
with the labor and skills of their
own few journalists
CS Application to Journalism
Cont’d

15.  Good journalistic crowdsourcing takes into consideration the
validity, quality, and ownership of the data journalists are
accessing.When used effectively, it is a unique way to engage
audiences and gather information that paints a more
comprehensive picture of what’s going on in the world.
 Crowdsourced journalism showed its limits during the Boston
bombing
 It was an iPhone photo that provided the clearest image of one of
the suspects.
 Yet Boston also showed the drawbacks to relying on crowdsourced
information without verification: innocent men were falsely
identified as suspects in the days after the bombing.
Good Journalistic
Crowdsourcing

16. 1. Your workers are unpaid, so make it fun
2. Public attention is fickle, so launch immediately
3. Speed is mandatory, so use a framework
4. Participation will come in big burst, so have
servers ready.
5. Reward participants (recognition or financial
compensation for the person who comes up
with the best solution)
6. What do you think?
How to Craft Good Crowdsourcing
Campaigns

17.  Howe, Jeff. “The Rise of Crowdsourcing.” Wired
Magazine 14.06 (June 2006).
http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowd
s.html?pg=3&topic=crowds&topic_set= (accessed
April 2015).
 Akagi, Katie & Stephanie Linning. “Crowdsourcing
Done Right.” Columbia Journalism Review (April
29,2013)
http://www.cjr.org/data_points/crowdsourcing_done
_right.php (accessed April 2015).
 Alsever, Jennifer. “What is Crowdsourcing?” CBS
(March 7, 2007).
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-
crowdsourcing/ (accessed April 2015).
Resources on Crowdsourcing

18.  Anderson, Michael. “Four Crowdsourcing Lessons
fromThe Guardian’s (Spectacular) Expenses-
Scandal Experiment.” NiemanLab (June 23, 2009).
http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/four-
crowdsourcing-lessons-from-the-guardians-
spectacular-expenses-scandal-experiment/
(accessed April 2015).
 Kumar, Pavan. “The Power of Crowdsourcing.”
http://www.slideshare.net/Pavankumar368/the-power-
of-crowd-sourcing?next_slideshow=2 (accessed April
2015).
Wikipedia. “AboutWikipedia.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About
(accessed April 2015).
Resources on Crowdsourcing