When I first read the topic of crowdsourcing as part of the coursework, I assumed it to mean crowdfunding, that is using the public to raise money. In fact, crowdsourcing goes much further than just raising money, it’s about the general public contributing knowledge, expertise, time and resources for a cause [Crowdsourcing.org 2012].
This video provides a good explanation around the differences between crowdsourcing vs crowdfunding.
On further reflection, I realised that I am a crowdsourcing participant, both for work purposes and personally.
I work in technology and crowdsourcing information is critical to this industry. With sites such as Stack Overflow, Slack channels, or even sometimes LinkedIn, complex technical are able to be asked and the online IT community can be turned to as a useful resource to help out. Demonstrating the massive participation in Stack Overflow, the number of hosted answers on the site has tripled the number from 9.3 million to 27.2 million from 2013 to 2019 (Haoxiang, 2020).
Similarly, Reddit gets a bad rap for toxic redditors, however some of the subreddits do provide the ability to crowdsource information or manage uncertainty for those suffering medial conditions as an example. Whist Reddit shouldn’t be used to diagnose illness (obviously), I found this article which conducted research into the long covid subreddit and came to the conclusion that the sub was a robust means to manage uncertainty, and even has an impact on patient advocacy which is positive (Thompson et al, 2022). Common questions on this subreddit for information seeking include things like “This is happening to me”, “Is this happening to you?” which helps to provide support for those experiencing the medical conditions (Thompson et al, 2022).
This was an interesting module for me as I went into it without a good understanding of crowdsourcing, but have come away with it recognising that I myself am an active participant in crowdsourcing information.
References
Charee M. Thompson, Kayla B. Rhidenour, Kate G. Blackburn, Ashley K. Barrett, Sara Babu, Using crowdsourced medicine to manage uncertainty on Reddit: The case of COVID-19 long-haulers, Patient Education and Counseling, Volume 105, Issue 2, 2022, Pages 322-330, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738399121004705
Crowdsourcing.org (2012). Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding Explained [online]. Available at: https://youtu.be/-38uPkyH9vI
Zhang, H, (2020) On the Maintenance of Crowdsourced Knowledge on Stack Overflow, Queen’s University (Canada) ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2020. 28387725, https://www.proquest.com/openview/8fb3f04332451e193b93c8e50cf51e1c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y