Enzo Silva blog » crowdsourcing

Open Books and TextBooks Online, Free

enzofsilva — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:40:08 +0000

Taking after the movement of open source (free – as in freedom) software development, knowledge and information has also been “open sourced” (and crowdsourced) as new Web technologies allow for flexibility and ease of online collaboration in generating content.

Textbooks are now on the same route and here are a few interesting resources for those who are tired of paying absurd prices for academia content out there. Let’s t get all of our mind and expertise together and share knowledge more wisely than the good ol’ authoritative knowledge consumption models allow us to…

Question: Why don’t more experts and professors join the trend of open books?

WikiBooks – From the same company that maintains WikiPedia, this is an incredible collection of open books in any subject imaginable. Worthwhile.

Flat World Knowledge - This website’s goal is to share quality, peer-reviewed books in many areas of expertise. The idea is that faculty will publish the books under the Creative Commons license and allow students to access tailored, good quality content without having to pay the (sometimes) outrageous prices for textbooks. They already have some interesting content up. From their site, we have their definition of an open book: “It is a great book by a great author, peer-reviewed, professionally edited & developed, and published under a Creative Commons license. Faculty may tailor the book to their needs. Students may access the book free online or buy an affordable print, audio, or handheld format. Students get choice; faculty get control; authors earn rapid market share, greater royalties over time, and do some good!”

Open Book Project - They still don’t have much in their collection of books. But here is what they aim to accomplish and I hope they succeed: “The Open Book Project is aimed at the educational community and seeks to encourage and coordinate collaboration among students and teachers for the development of high quality, freely distributable textbooks and educational materials on a wide range of topics.”

TextBook Revolution – This site’s mission on their frontpage says it all: “Our approach is to bring all of the free textbooks we can find together in one place, review them, and let the best rise to the top and find their way into the hands of students in classrooms around the world.”

Waze, the Driver-generated GPS – Crowdsourcing Navigation – Free GPS for the iPhone

enzofsilva — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:10:32 +0000

Yeah, the concept of crowdsourcing has been everyone. The wisdom of the crowd is something that has been more in evidence lately and Web 2.0 technologies allow for people to get together and collaborate on products, websites, information gathering, etc.

Now it’s the navigation systems’ turn. With Waze, drivers submit new routes, traffic updates and more on ever-evolving maps.

And it’s free for the iPhone.

From their official website:

“What are waze drivers building?

Waze is a social mobile application providing free turn-by-turn navigation based on the live conditions of the road.
100% powered by users, the more you drive, the better it gets. Join the community of drivers in your area today!”

Crowdsourcing eLearning (Feedback)

enzofsilva — Wed, 13 May 2009 08:53:52 +0000

I understand crowdsourcing courses, lessons and other eLearning-related material can be a tough call for any sector (corporate, K12, etc.). But has anyone had any experience crowdsourcing the development of learning experiences from a user feedback perspective at least?

One question could be how is crowdsourcing feedback different from simply putting a feedback button on your website or a particular lesson or product? Crowdsourcing seems to be more powerful since instead of relying on static feedback submitted by individual users at a given time, when feedback is given in a community-driven platform, it can much more powerful. Users will spark discussions around one’s content in a dynamic manner, sharing their thoughts and ideas from perspectives others might not have considered if submitting a single “feedback ticket”.

So, again, has anyone used crowdsourcing for engaging the learners in the development process?

Services that use crowdsourcing for feedback and product ideas include (not limited to):

OK, I might need to stop here, the “idea/innovation management” crowdsourcing field seems to be the one that suffers the most from “cloning” in the social media era… almost like they ran out of ideas for innovative takes on the same topic…

Here is a more comprehensive list of crowdsourcing modalities and websites.

Crowdsourcing (and) Learning

enzofsilva — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:59:35 +0000

Many companies, educators and students already use tools such as blogs, wikis, Google Docs, DimDim and other collaborative tools to co-create materials and learn collaboratively. However, these normally involve a small group of people that already know one another and are working together on a specific project.

Crowdsourcing takes group collaboration to the next level by allowing people to post certain ideas, initiate discussions and attract a larger amount of people (normally strangers) who will contribute to the idea, improving it with their own expertise. Websites such as Kluster, Innocentive, CambrianHouse, CrowdSpirit and IdeaBlob are a good example of what crowdsourcing is. One can say that Wikipedia, for instance is also a form of crowdsourcing knowledge.

In Education, websites such as Citizendium and Eduzendium, expert-moderated Wikipedia “clones”, the Encyclopedia of Life, a user-generated encyclopedia of life on Earth are all good examples of crowdsourcing knowledge in a more reliable manner.

In the meantime, I am still waiting to see more of this concept applied to learning, as we all become active ”learners” literally “building” knowledge with the help of one another…