Crowdsourcing

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Crowdsourcing as defined by Wikipedia is “is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. This process is often used to subdivide tedious work or to fund-raise startup companies and charities, and can also occur offline. It combines the efforts of numerous self-identified volunteers or part-time workers, where each contributor of their own initiative adds a small portion to the greater result. The term "crowdsourcing" is a portmanteau of "crowd" and "outsourcing"; it is distinguished from outsourcing in that the work comes from an undefined public rather than being commissioned from a specific, named group.” (Wikipedia 5/4/2014). The definition is further refined by Jeff Howe of Wired magazine as follows: “Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers.” (Brabham 76) One think Jeff Howe later clarifies in his definition that isn’t included in the Wikipedia definition is “it is only crowdsourcing once a company takes that design, fabricates [it] in mass quantity and sells [it]. (Brabham 76) Howe’s clarification might have been accurate in the classic sense in 2006, but non-profit organizations have been using crowdsourcing as well to solve problems th...

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... Daniel Veit. "More than Fun and Money. Worker Motivation in Crowdsourcing - A Study on Mechanical Turk." Proceedings of the Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems (2011): 1-11. Web.
5. Naroditskiy, Victor, Nicholas R. Jennings, Pascal Van Hentenryck, and Manuel Cebrian. "Crowdsourcing Delimma." University of Southampton National Information and Communications Technology Australia (2014): 1-15. Web.
6. Schenk, Eric, and Claude Guittard. "Crowdsourcing: What Can Be Outsourced to the Crowd, and Why?" University of Strasbourg Graduate School of Science and Technology (2009): 1-29. Web.
7. Thomas, Stuart. "9 Examples of Crowdsourcing, before ‘crowdsourcing’ Existed." Memeburn. N.p., 15 Sept. 2011. Web. 4 May 2014.
8. Youden, Diane, Jean Lee, and Justin Angsuwat. "Harnessing the Power of Crowdsourcing." PWC Advisory People and Change (Summer 2011): 1-8. W

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