Capturing the Forest or the Trees: Designing for Granularity in Data Crowdsourcing

Abstract

Crowdsourcing is a method of completing a task by engaging a large group of heterogeneous contributors. Data crowdsourcing is crowdsourcing of data collection. In this paper, we demonstrate how data crowdsourcing projects can be differentiated along five dimensions: (1) the extent to which tasks are well-defined; (2) the duration of the task; (3) the type of value generated by the consumers of crowdsourcing data; (4) the variety of contribution allowed when completing the task; and (5) the relative value of each contribution. We argue that the quality of information created by a crowd depends on the granularity of contributions contributors are able to make. Finally, we propose a set of principles for designing crowdsourcing system to align the level of granularity of contributions with project objectives.