[2] This form of public involvement in the governing process differs from older systems of popular action, from town halls to referendums, in that it is primarily conducted online or through a similar IT medium.
[3][4] Governments which have adopted crowdsourcing as a method of information gathering, policy guidance, and in some cases a vital part of the lawmaking process include Brazil, Finland, Iceland, Egypt, Tunisia, and the United States, among many others.
Crowdsourcing requires a specific goal, rewards to be gained by both the crowd and the government, and an open request for anyone to participate, as well as to be conducted through the internet or some other IT medium.
[citation needed] Around the world, governments continue to use competitions, delegate large tasks, and reach out to their constituents for feedback both on specific bills and for guidance on various policies.
They have also begun, in countries as different as Brazil, British Columbia, and Finland, to not only draw feedback, expertise, and ideas from the crowd, but also specific provisions and wordings for legislation and even constitutions.
[14][7] These initiatives, which give participating constituents greater leeway to both develop their ideas, deliberate, and be heard, mirroring what Brabham describes as "peer-vetted creative crowdsourcing".
[5][16] In other rarer cases, the efforts succeeded and the crowdsourced laws were adopted, though in somewhat amended form, as happened with the Brazilian Internet Bill of Rights and in the Constitutional Convention (Ireland).
[17] In several post-revolutionary moments, notably those of Tunisia, Iceland, and Egypt, the new governments have also used crowdsourcing as a means of securing legitimacy and addressing the issues which brought them into power in the first place.
Helene Landemore, following a similar line of thought as Brabham, defines crowdsourcing as an online problem-solving and production model in which an undefined crowd helps to complete a task by submitting knowledge, information, or talent.
[5] She further distinguishes it from Wikipedia-esque "commons-based peer production", noting that crowdsourcing generally takes the form of individuals commenting and making suggestions in a vacuum as opposed to deliberating, discussing, and collaborating with one another.
His conception of crowdsourcing consists of posting a draft constitution online, utilizing both official websites and social media pages.
[23] That is, crowds gathered to work on an agenda set out by the government,[24] pooling their diverse expertise to cover every possible field of information.
This creates an internal marketplace for foreign affairs work and matches State Department opportunities and requirements with untapped skills and experience.
The Special Advisor for Civil Society and Emerging Democracies created Diplomacy Lab as a way for the Department to crowdsource longer-term projects from the academic community.
Visualizing where USAID enhances the capacity of the private sector can signal new areas for potential collaboration with host countries, researchers, development organizations, and the public.
[33] CDCology[34] is a way for CDC staff to post unclassified, one-minute to one-day long (micro)tasks that can be solved by undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate student volunteers.
In return, universities can offer students short challenges directly impacting national initiatives and gain experience with government work.
[46] After reviewing the results, a second expanded pilot was launched in 2010, extending coverage to include biotechnology, bioinformatics, telecommunications, and speech recognition.
[48] The order was created with the goal of improving patent quality overall and fostering innovation by integrating new ways for companies, experts, and the general public to find and submit "prior art" or evidence needed to ascertain if an invention is novel.
This roundtable focused on two key questions: (1) how the USPTO can utilize crowdsourcing tools to obtain relevant prior art in order to enhance the quality of examination and issued patents; and (2) ways the USPTO can leverage existing private sector solutions for the electronic receipt and hosting of crowdsourced materials as a means to provide prior art to examiners.
[51] Speakers at the roundtable included Matt Levy (Computer & Communications Industry Association), Mark Nowotarski (Markets, Patents & Alliances LLC), Cheryl Milone (Article One Partners), and Pedram Sameni (Patexia Inc.).
As part of that goal, they are working with Christopher Wong, who was appointed to be the Presidential Innovation Fellow supporting crowdsourcing and patent reform initiatives for the USPTO.