Recent crowdsourcing tools are changing the Education. However, each tool has a specific approach, business model and e-Learning goals. Due the increasing contribution of crowdsourcing in the e-Learning process, it has become important to study it and map the challenges intrinsic to this activity. This work discusses and classifies several crowdsourcing e-Learning tools that can be found in the Internet. We defined and used eleven dimensions to classify the 22 tools found, ranging from online Universities to marketplaces for online courses. The work contributions are: provide the first map the crowdsourcing tools and a framework for classify the future tools.
This chapter focuses on how, by “activating” the citizen's engagement in the research process, the scientific community has a smart way to benefit from the wisdom of the “crowd”. There are countless success stories in which citizens participate, contributing with their knowledge, cognitive capacity, creativity, opinion, and skills. However, for many scientists, the lack of familiarity with the particular nature of citizen participation, which is usually anonymous and volatile, turns into a barrier for its adoption. This chapter presents a problem-based typology for citizen-science projects that aims to help scientists to choose the best strategy for engaging and counting on citizen participation based on the scientific problem at hand; and some examples are included. Moreover, the chapter discusses the main challenges for researchers who intend to start involving the citizens in order to solve their specific scientific needs.
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