Crowdsourcing Application for Libraries - Research Paper Example

Crowdsourcing approaches are applied in a wide range of contexts such as collective intelligence, open innovation, problem-solving, human computation, user-generated content, creative design, social engagement, knowledge aggregation, and prediction markets. As crowdsourcing and related fields such as open innovation and collective intelligence are rapidly gaining importance in research and practice, new questions and challenges arise that require a deeper understanding of these phenomena from an Information Systems (IS) perspective. Against this backdrop, this research aims to explore the motivations for people to volunteer or participate in crowdsourcing applications. This research particularly looks at the library use of crowdsourcing and the motivational factors influencing the participation of library users in these activities.

The success of crowdsourcing applications involves understanding the motivations of the crowd to participate. For example, an open code permits the flow of feedback from developers and users, which is very useful for improving the crowdsourcing application. (cited in Andrea Bonaccorsi & Cristina Rossi 2004). Another factor that can motivate is gaining a reputation among peers, indicating the quality of human capital and learning are especially significant (Lerner & Tirole, 2002a; Dalle & David, 2003). This work demonstrates that a participant's understanding of their identity in the community, and their ability to reflect on their impact can act as motivational factors for creating work. This suggests that building a community, and providing mechanisms for users to understand their contributions as valuable may prove to be fruitful.