Crowdsourcing

CROWDSOURCING

Crowdsourcing. [Digital Image]. How Crowdsourcing Can Benefit Education (2018) Retrieved on July 2 from  https://ideascale.com/how-crowdsourcing-can-benefit-education/

What is Crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing involves obtaining work, information, or opinions from a large group of people who submit their data via the Internet, social media, and smartphone apps (Hargrave).   It highlights that innovation and creativity can come from anywhere.

Until looking into this topic for this course, I didn’t know much about this topic or the name.  Through doing some research on it, I realized that I’ve seen it all around me but didn’t know what to call it until now.  The best example that I could find online about what this in general was on common reality shows.  Shows like American Idol, America’s Got Talent and So You Think You Can Dance have used this concept for years.  These contests use public voting to find the next superstar where the winner will produce albums or be featured in movies or win Las Vegas contracts.    This concept isn’t a new one.  Throughout history, this has been done.  One of the ones that I discovered was the 1714 Longitude Prize.  In 1714, the British Government had a longitude problem which made sailing difficult.  They offered the public money to come up with a solution.  The contest was won by John Harrison who invented the marine chronometer. 

Focusing on Virginia History:
What I found out about crowdsourcing in Virginia history was that crowdsourcing often involves seeking volunteers to help with online projects to get people to become engaged in a variety of topics.

Examples of this in Virginia history include:
UVA asks citizen scientists to help transcribe 7,000 botany records
https://uvamagazine.org/articles/crowdsourcing_historical_collections/secrets_of_the_spring_skies

Mapping the Fourth of July through the Civil War:
I went to Virginia Tech so I think that this is really cool.  It guides you through transcribing documents and shows you examples.
http://incite.cs.vt.edu/m4j/incite/

Volunteer transcription text:
https://www.virginiamemoy.com/

https://www.alexandriava.gov/historic/info/default.aspx?id=29562

Update on my final project:
I have implemented the feedback that the professor gave me and continue to build it out.

Here is the site:

https://sites.google.com/email.vccs.edu/renegade-rider-annie/home

REFERENCES

Hargrave, Marshall. “Crowdsourcing.” Investopedia, Retrieved on July 2 from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdsourcing.asp

Longitude Prize. Retrieved on July 2 from https://longitudeprize.org/about-us/history