crowdsourcing activity 1

For this assignment youâ€™ll be working individually.

Choose one of the sites below. Take a look around the site and try the crowdsourcing task suggested by the site for yourself. Note any positive or negative moments during your experience and think specifically about:

How easily can you find your way from the front page to starting the task?
What is the core goal of the project? How well is it communicated by the site?
What input content or information is provided on the site?
What tasks does it ask participants to do?
What outputs are produced?
How are contributions validated? How does this affect how the information might be useful later?
Who are their probable audiences for working on this site?
Is the site graphic â€˜look and feelâ€™ suitable for those audiences?
Is the ‘call to action’ clear?
What motivations for starting and/or continuing to participate are supported by the siteâ€™s design?
How are participants rewarded?
Does the site communicate the value it places on contributions?

Write an essay of 400 words discussing your responses to at least three of the questions above with regard to the specific site that you tried out. Also respond to the following question of crowdsourcing as a strategy for the creation of new information as a whole.

After participating in these projects, how do you see this kind of information creation intersecting with other ideas from the course? Specifically think about the Sellen, Brynjolfsson and MacAfee, and Rogers readings.