Andrew Nash for the Transportation Research Board: “Crowdsourcing is an organized way of involving people in decision-making and production. Crowdsourced products, like Wikipedia, are replacing established products. Crowdsourced services, like Uber, are replacing established services. Crowdsourced advice, like Trip Advisor, is replacing established experts. Crowdsourcing is becoming ubiquitous as people and organizations realize that it helps them make better decisions and produce better products. This paper is predicated on the belief that crowdsourcing is the key innovation needed for public transport to thrive in this age of rapid change. It presents a model structure for helping understand crowdsourcing and examples of how public transport organizations can use crowdsourcing. The paper presents a broad survey of crowdsourcing with the objective of helping practitioners and researchers implement and understand crowdsourcing projects in public transport…(More)”
Citizen Science in the Digital Age: Rhetoric, Science, and Public Engagement
Book by James Wynn: “…highlights scientific studies grounded in publicly gathered data and probes the rhetoric these studies employ. Many of these endeavors, such as the widely used SETI@home project, simply draw on the processing power of participants’ home computers; others, like the protein-folding game FoldIt, ask users to take a more active role in solving scientific problems. In Citizen Science in the Digital Age: Rhetoric, Science, and Public Engagement, Wynn analyzes the discourse that enables these scientific ventures, as well as the difficulties that arise in communication between scientists and lay people and the potential for misuse of publicly gathered data.
Wynn puzzles out the intricacies of these exciting new research developments by focusing on various case studies. He explores the Safecast project, which originated from crowd-sourced mapping for Fukushima radiation dispersal, arguing that evolving technologies enable public volunteers to make concrete, sound, science-based arguments. Additionally, he considers the potential use of citizen science as a method of increasing the public’s identification with the scientific community, and contemplates how more collaborative rhetoric might deepen these opportunities for interaction and alignment. Furthermore, he examines ways in which the lived experience of volunteers may be integrated with expert scientific knowledge, and also how this same personal involvement can be used to further policy agendas.
Precious few texts explore the intersection of rhetoric, science, and the Internet. Citizen Science in the Digital Age fills this gap, offering a clear, intelligent overview of the topic intended for rhetoric and communication scholars as well as practitioners and administrators in a number of science-based disciplines. With the expanded availability of once inaccessible technologies and computing power to laypeople, the practice of citizen science will only continue to grow. This study offers insight into how—given prudent application and the clear articulation of common goals—citizen science might strengthen the relationships between scientists and laypeople….(More)”
Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing for Earth Observations: An Analysis of Stakeholder Opinions on the Present and Future
Suvodeep Mazumdar, Stuart Wrigley and Fabio Ciravegna in Remote Sense: “The impact of Crowdsourcing and citizen science activities on academia, businesses, governance and society has been enormous. This is more prevalent today with citizens and communities collaborating with organizations, businesses and authorities to contribute in a variety of manners, starting from mere data providers to being key stakeholders in various decision-making processes. The “Crowdsourcing for observations from Satellites” project is a recently concluded study supported by demonstration projects funded by European Space Agency (ESA). The objective of the project was to investigate the different facets of how crowdsourcing and citizen science impact upon the validation, use and enhancement of Observations from Satellites (OS) products and services. This paper presents our findings in a stakeholder analysis activity involving participants who are experts in crowdsourcing, citizen science for Earth Observations. The activity identified three critical areas that needs attention by the community as well as provides suggestions to potentially help in addressing some of the challenges identified….(More)”.
Be the Change: Saving the World with Citizen Science
Book by It’s so easy to be overwhelmed by everything that is wrong in the world. In 2010, there were 660,000 deaths from malaria. Dire predictions about climate change suggest that sea levels could rise enough to submerge both Los Angeles and London by 2100. Bees are dying, not by the thousands but by the millions.
But what can you do? You’re just one person, right? The good news is that you *can* do something.
It’s called citizen science, and it’s a way for ordinary people like you and me to do real, honest-to-goodness, help-answer-the-big-questions science.
This book introduces you to a world in which it is possible to go on a wildlife survey in a national park, install software on your computer to search for a cure for cancer, have your smartphone log the sound pollution in your city, transcribe ancient Greek scrolls, or sift through the dirt from a site where a mastodon died 11,000 years ago—even if you never finished high school….(More)”
How Mobile Crowdsourcing Can Improve Occupational Safety
Batu Sayici & Beth Simone Noveck at The GovLab’s Medium: “With 150 workers dying each day from hazardous working conditions, work safety continues to be a serious problem in the U.S. Using mobile technology to collect information about workplace safety conditions from those on the ground could help prevent serious injuries and save lives by accelerating the ability to spot unsafe conditions. The convergence of wireless devices, low-cost sensors, big data, and crowdsourcing can transform the way we assess risk in our workplaces. Government agencies, labor unions, workers’ rights organizations, contractors and crowdsourcing technology providers should work together to create new tools and frameworks in a way that can improve safety and provide value to all stakeholders.
Crowdsourcing (the act of soliciting help from a distributed audience) can provide a real-time source of data to complement data collected by government agencies as part of the regulatory processes of monitoring workplace safety. Having access to this data could help government agencies to more effectively monitor safety-related legal compliance, help building owners, construction companies and procurement entities to more easily identify “responsible contractors and subcontractors,” and aid workers and unions in making more informed choices and becoming better advocates for their own protection. Just as the FitBit and Nike Wristband provide individuals with a real-time reflection of their habits designed to create the incentive for healthier living, crowdsourcing safety data has the potential to provide employers and employees alike with a more accurate picture of conditions and accelerate the time needed to take action….(More)”
All deleted tweets from politicians
Politwoops: “An archive of public tweets, deleted by politicians. Explore the tweets they would prefer you couldn’t see.”
Crowdsourcing the Egyptian Constitution
Tofigh Maboudi and Ghazal P. Nadi in Political Research Quarterly: “Drawing on empirical evidence from online citizen feedback on the 2012 Egyptian Constitution, we demonstrate that despite normative skepticism about implications of participatory constitution making, citizen participation matters. Using data of more than 650,000 online votes and comments on the constitution, we find that draft provisions with higher public approval are less likely to change and those with lower approval are more likely to change. We also find that Articles related to rights and freedoms are more likely to change based on online public input. Finally, following the boycott of the Constituent Assembly by non-Islamists, changes in draft Articles based on public feedback drop sharply. These findings highlight the conditions under which participatory constitution making becomes more effective. First, consensus among citizens over the most salient issues increases the probability that those issues would be successfully incorporated in the constitution. Second, without ex ante elite agreement over the design of the constitution, it becomes difficult to account for citizen proposals amid political clash between elites…(More)”.
Crowdsourcing Medical Data Through Gaming
Felix Morgan in The Austin Chronicle: “Video games have changed the way we play, but they also have the potential to change the way we research and solve problems, in fields such as health care and education. One game that’s made waves in medical research is Sea Hero Quest. This smartphone game has created a groundbreaking approach to data collection, leading to an earlier diagnosis of dementia. So far, 2.5 million people have played the game, providing scientists with years’ worth of data across borders and demographics.
By offering this game as a free mobile app, researchers are overcoming the ever-present problems of small sample sizes and time-consuming data gathering in empirical research. Sea Hero Quest was created by Glitchers, partnering with University College London, University of East Anglia, and Alzheimer’s Research. As players navigate mazes, shoot flares into baskets, and photograph sea creatures, they answer simple demographic questions and generate rich data sets.
“The idea of crowdsourced data-gathering games for research is a new and exciting method of obtaining data that would be prohibitively expensive otherwise,” says Paul Toprac, who along with his colleague Matt O’Hair, run the Simulation and Game Applications (SAGA) Lab at University of Texas Austin. Their team helps researchers across campus and in the private sector design, implement, and find funding for video game-based research.
O’Hair sees a lot of potential for Sea Hero Quest and other research-based games. “One of the greatest parts about the SAGA Lab is that we get to help researchers make strides in these kinds of fields,” he says.
The idea of using crowdsourcing for data collection is relatively new, but using gaming for research is something that has been well established. Last year at SXSW, Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, made a statement that video games were the key to understanding and treating dementia and related issues, which certainly seems possible based on the preliminary results from Sea Hero Quest. “We have had about 35 years of research using games as a medium,” Toprac says. “However, only recently have we used games as a tool for explicit data gathering.”…(More)”
Fighting Ebola with information
Larissa Fast and Adele Waugaman at Global Innovation Exchange: What can be learned from the use of data, information, and digital technologies, such as mobile-based systems and internet connectivity, during the Ebola outbreak response in West Africa? What worked, what didn’t, and how can we apply these lessons to improve data and information flows in the future? This report details key findings and recommendations about the collection, management, analysis, and use of paper-based and digital data and information, drawing upon the insights of more than 130 individuals and organizations who worked tirelessly to end the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and 2015….(More)”
Governing with Collective Intelligence
Tom Saunders and Geoff Mulgan at Nesta: “This paper provides an introduction to collective intelligence in government. It aims to be useful and relevant to governments of countries at very different levels of development. It highlights the ways in which governments are better understanding the world around them, drawing on ideas and expertise from their citizens, and encouraging greater scrutiny of their actions.
Collective intelligence is a new term to describe something which is in some respects old, but in other respects changing dramatically thanks to advances in digital technologies. It refers to the ability of large groups – a community, region, city or nation – to think and act intelligently in a way that amounts to more than the sum of their parts.
Key findings
Our analysis of government use of collective intelligence initiatives around the world finds that activities fall into four broad categories:
1. Better understanding facts and experiences: using new digital tools to gather data from many more sources.
2. Better development of options and ideas: tapping into the collective brainpower of citizens to come up with better ideas and options for action.
3. Better, more inclusive decision-making: involving citizens in decision making, from policymaking to planning and budgeting.
4. Better oversight of what is done: encouraging broader involvement in the oversight of government activity, from monitoring corruption to scrutinising budgets, helping to increase accountability and transparency….(More)”