What is crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing is the process of getting work or funding, usually online, from a crowd of people. The word is a combination of the words 'crowd' and 'outsourcing'. The idea is to take work and outsource it to a crowd of workers.
Famous Example: Wikipedia. Instead of Wikipedia creating an encyclopedia on their own, hiring writers and editors, they gave a crowd the ability to create the information on their own. The result? The most comprehensive encyclopedia this world has ever seen.
Crowdsourcing & Quality: The principle of crowdsourcing is that more heads are better than one. By canvassing a large crowd of people for ideas, skills, or participation, the quality of content and idea generation will be superior.
Famous Example: Wikipedia. Instead of Wikipedia creating an encyclopedia on their own, hiring writers and editors, they gave a crowd the ability to create the information on their own. The result? The most comprehensive encyclopedia this world has ever seen.
Crowdsourcing & Quality: The principle of crowdsourcing is that more heads are better than one. By canvassing a large crowd of people for ideas, skills, or participation, the quality of content and idea generation will be superior.
Crowdsourcing techniques do not always have to be digital. Before the Internet, it may have been more difficult to collect data from a large number of people, but it was not impossible.
In fact, Francis Galton used crowdsourcing in 1906 to accurately predict the weight of a bull. While visitng a livestock fair in 1906, Galton observed a contest in which participants attempted to guess the weight of a particular ox that was on display. Out of the nearly 800 guesses made, nobody accurately estimated the exact weight of 1,198 pounds. Some guesses were too low, while others were too high. Galton surveyed the range of guesses and noted that out of the nearly 800 guesses, the mean (average) prediction was 1,197 pounds! While no single individual was able to make an accurate guess, the crowd, as a whole, was surprisingly accurate.
This "wisdom of the crowd" phenomenon is not restricted to the weight of bulls, however. It can be seen over and over again anytime a sufficiently large sample size of individuals are asked to estimate an unknown result and is the basis for the use of crowdsourcing.
In fact, Francis Galton used crowdsourcing in 1906 to accurately predict the weight of a bull. While visitng a livestock fair in 1906, Galton observed a contest in which participants attempted to guess the weight of a particular ox that was on display. Out of the nearly 800 guesses made, nobody accurately estimated the exact weight of 1,198 pounds. Some guesses were too low, while others were too high. Galton surveyed the range of guesses and noted that out of the nearly 800 guesses, the mean (average) prediction was 1,197 pounds! While no single individual was able to make an accurate guess, the crowd, as a whole, was surprisingly accurate.
This "wisdom of the crowd" phenomenon is not restricted to the weight of bulls, however. It can be seen over and over again anytime a sufficiently large sample size of individuals are asked to estimate an unknown result and is the basis for the use of crowdsourcing.