User:Tonisant/Crowdsourcing

The concept of crowdsourcing is certainly an essential element in the M3P. It's a type of collaboration that goes beyond traditional forms of cooperation but builds on many of their strengths while sharing some of their flaws.

It's certainly something I need to understand better in making sure that the broader context for the M3P is understood more widely.

• Why Every College Should Start Crowdsourcing - Michelle Lindblom, Mashable, 19 July 2011

• Crowdsourcing and Variant Digital Editions — some troubles ahead - JISC Digitisation Programme, 18 July 2011

• How to use Twitter to crowd-source creativity - Mark W. Schaefer

• Amazon Killed The Book Reviewer Star by Gregory Ferenstein, TechCrunch, Tuesday 15 May 2012

• NOVA scienceNOW | Wisdom of the Crowds - Neil deGrasse Tyson, PBS 2008

• Getting Results from Crowds - companion website

Collaboration/Cooperation

Collaboration and cooperation are essential related terms/concepts for any discussion of crowdsourcing.

• Introducing the Collaboration Curve by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison - Harvard Business Review, 8 April 2009

Howard Rheingold's concept maps & mini courses:

• Toward a literacy of cooperation - How do we understand cooperation?
• Social Dilemma

• Mini-course on Introduction to Cooperation Theory

Collaboration vs. Self-interest

Tony Grimaud's PhD is verging towards a hypothesis that collaboration in Malta is trumped by self-interest (almost) every time. Joe Demicoli expressed a sense of apathy to me in a FB note on 15/10/11 when he was in the process of organizing a night-out for former members of 60s/70s pop/rock bands. Although I have experienced this myself directly on many other occasions too, I am confident that there are strategies to overcome all this, and Grimaud should be addressing these in his doctoral dissertation.

There is also a strong belief elsewhere (especially in Wikimedia circles!) that the opposite holds true. The best place I've found this expressed is in The Penguin and the Leviathan:How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest, Yochai Benkler's new book, published in August 2011. This idea very eloquently presented in this excellent lecture by PhD candidate Benjamin Mako Hill delivered at Harvard's Berkman Center on Tuesday 11 October 2011: Almost Wikipedia: What Eight Collaborative Encyclopedia Projects Reveal About Mechanisms of Collective Action (inc. video + audio downloads). Among other things, including some interesting background information, the lecture discusses how “Failed Wikipedias” suggest successful ways to encourage contribution and collaboration.

The lecture also points out the following essential findings:

1. Wikipedia attracts contributors because it is built around a familiar product.
2. Wikipedia attracts contributors because it is focused on substantive content development instead of technology.
3. Wikipedia attracts contributors because it offers low transaction costs to participation.
4. Wikipedia attracts contributors because it deemphasizes attribution and “social ownership” of content.

Further comments on this lecture:

• Almost Wikipedias and innovation in free collaboration projects - Mike Linksvayer's blog
• The contribution conundrum: Why did Wikipedia succeed while other encyclopedias failed? - Megan Garber

A (mostly unrelated) perspective from Jimmy Wales who apparently hates crowdsourcing video. [1]

Crowdfunding

• Artists Find Benefactors in Web Crowd - Patricia Cohen, New York Times, 16 March 2012

• 11 Innovative Crowdfunding Platforms for Social Good - Christie Marchese, Mashable, 20 October 2011

• The History & Evolution of Crowdfunding - Bill Clark, Mashable, 15 September 2011

• A penny for your thoughts: Why crowdfunding is taking off - Ville Miettinen, Microtask 2 September 2010

• Unglue.it Makes Free EBooks Through A Unique Crowdfunding Website - Huffington Post, 21 May 2012 + Unglue.it

• How is crowdfunding changing culture? - Patrick Hussey, Guardian Professional, Friday 17 August 2012

See also

• Digital Strategies for Heritage conference #DISH2011

• Digital culture: hierarchy to network - part 1
• Digital culture: hierarchy to network - part 2

• 10 Great Quotes from Macrowikinomics

• The Future of Car Sharing - very interesting perspective on collaboration.

• Using Social Media in Learning & Co-learning - Howard Rheingold video (October 2011)

• AHRC Crowd Sourcing Study A project of the AHRC's Connected Communities Programme

• The Rise and Decline of an Open Collaboration Community: How Wikipedia's reaction to sudden popularity is causing its decline by Aaron Halfaker, R. Stuart Geiger, Jonathan Morgan & John Riedl.

• Art History Failing in Not Using Internet Collaboratively - 2012

• College of Future Could Be Come One, Come All - NYTimes, 19 November 2012

• Digital Impacts: Crowdsourcing in the Arts and Humanities OII Event on Tuesday 9 April 2013

• Co-Creation in Culture: From a Gin and Tonic to Profound Change - Ramon Sangüesa, 12 February 2014