Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition

Abstract

‘Crowdsourcing’ is a relatively recent concept that encompasses many practices. This diversity leads to the blurring of the limits of crowdsourcing that may be identified virtually with any type of internet-based collaborative activity, such as co-creation or user innovation. Varying definitions of crowdsourcing exist, and therefore some authors present certain specific examples of crowdsourcing as paradigmatic, while others present the same examples as the opposite. In this article, existing definitions of crowdsourcing are analysed to extract common elements and to establish the basic characteristics of any crowdsourcing initiative. Based on these existing definitions, an exhaustive and consistent definition for crowdsourcing is presented and contrasted in 11 cases.

Crowdsourcing’s ten years in: A review

“…The definition of crowdsourcing as well as some ‘traditional’ examples of crowdsourcing, such as Wikipedia, are highly debated; this is likely due to both the relative newness of the term and the flexibility and adaptability of the method [1,5,7,8,10–12,20,40–43]. To further complicate authors’ attempts to define crowdsourcing, there are a variety of related concepts that have been used synonymously, including: citizen science, health 2.0, wisdom of the crowds, peer production, open sourcing, expert sourcing, collective intelligence, human computation, community–based participatory research, participatory epidemiology, outsourcing and open sourcing [1,3,7,12,43].…”

“…To further complicate authors’ attempts to define crowdsourcing, there are a variety of related concepts that have been used synonymously, including: citizen science, health 2.0, wisdom of the crowds, peer production, open sourcing, expert sourcing, collective intelligence, human computation, community–based participatory research, participatory epidemiology, outsourcing and open sourcing [1,3,7,12,43]. While some, like expert–sourcing, are easy to understand as crowdsourcing with experts, the differences between crowdsourcing and others are more nuanced.…”

“…Since there are many different definitions, Estelles–Arolas et al reviewed definitions of crowdsourcing and developed an integrative definition using Tatarkiewicz’s approach, which is based on developing a global definition of the concept of art. In their review, the authors found 8 key qualities of a crowdsourcing definition, namely: a) who forms the crowd; b) what the crowd has to do; c) how the crowd is reimbursed; d) who initiates the crowdsourcing process; e) what the product of crowdsourcing is; f) what type of process is used; g) what type of call is used; and h) by what medium the call is made [12]. …”

“…As crowdsourcing requires, depending on the definition, ‘outsourcing’ a task or tasks to a large crowd [12], advances in technology have facilitated the efficiency of this method [2,6,13–15]. Indeed, research that was previously inconceivable due to the scale is now achievable through crowdsourcing [6].…”

“…Despite the interest in the area of crowdsourcing exploding in the past decade, many authors do not agree on its definition or on what counts as crowdsourcing, with some academics considering Wikipedia a “classic” example of crowdsourcing, for example, while others insist it is not crowdsourcing [12]. Text and data mining is another example that is on the fringe of crowdsourcing’s definition.…”