Crowdsourcing – the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by seeking donations from a large group of people – is an online activity that governments have been attempting to facilitate to gain a growth in public participation from a nation’s citizens.
There are three main types of crowdsourcing:
- Crowdfunding: projects are funded by a large group of people, like Kickstarter.
- Crowdsourced design: projects are funded for a large group of people to design something, for example, a website.
- Crowdwisdom: users ask questions in front of a large pool of people willing to answer, like Yahoo! Answers.
Daren C. Barbham conducted a study, entitled “The Effectiveness of Crowdsourcing Public Participation in a Planning Context”, to conclude if crowdsourcing is an effective online method of increasing public participation that complements offline methods. Barbham asserts that governments have turned to the Internet as a solution to the decline in transparency, accountability, and citizen involvement in decision–making.
The Internet is an ideal place for crowdsourcing because individuals tend to be more open minded in web-based projects when they are not being physically judged, criticized, or scrutinized. Thus they feel more comfortable sharing their opinions. Daren C. Barbham tested these ideas in 2009 when he launched the Next Stop Design project. Using a crowdsourcing model, Barbham examined whether or not online public participation could work together to design a bus stop shelter. Twenty-three participants were interviewed about the project to gather their thoughts as to if the project was an effective public participation activity. It was concluded that crowdsourcing is an effective method for some public participating projects, not others. Thus it was determined that crowdsourcing is best suited for simple tasks.
PROS:
- Crowdsourcing is affordable; cheaper than hiring a professional consultant
- With more people, you can finish a project is a shorter amount of time for less money
- A high number of people are ready to work and at any given time
- Immediate and useable feedback
CONS:
- Cheap labor can result in a less credible result, compared to a professional product
- Some tasks are too risky for crowdsourcing
- Communication and collaboration can be difficult
- Processionals are hired for their expertise and experience, while laborers are used for simple tasks
- Lager groups of participants are harder to manage
- There is no contract or confidentiality agreement; workers can leave at any time and possibly steal or reuse the ideas
Taking these pros and cons of crowdsourcing into account, you should not immediately shy away from it. In the 
end, it all comes down to two things: what your problem is, and how much you are willing to pay for the solution. Here are some tips to keep in mind when outsourcing jobs:
- be specific
- don’t be too cheap
- have a way to verify your results
- weigh your options
Crowdsourcing can bring your ideas to new heights. So celebrate and collaborate!
Grace's Civic Media Blog 