FCPCCS

A New Team Strives to Coordinate Citizen Science, Crowdsourcing Across Government

A government can accomplish nothing without the ingenuity of its people. This is why the federal government is committed to using online tools to make its problem-solving more open and collaborative. A growing number of agencies are testing the applications of crowdsourcing and citizen science to accomplish more, and in many cases, do things faster

Eric Beidel

Jan 20, 2016

Challenges, Crowdsourcing, Citizen Science: What’s the Dif?

There’s more than one way to harness the wisdom of the crowd. In honor of December’s monthly theme, we’re diving into and defining the various ways that federal agencies use public contributions to meet real needs and fulfill important objectives. Crowdsourcing Two’s company, three’s a crowd—and getting input from many is crowdsourcing. A White House

Ashley Wichman

Dec 16, 2015

Challenges & Crowdsourcing: A Quick Overview and Look Ahead

This month we’re highlighting articles about challenge competitions and crowdsourcing across the federal government. Federal agencies can gain a wealth of ideas, services, solutions and products by asking a large, diverse crowd to contribute their talents and skills. Simply put, crowdsourcing means engaging the crowd. Often referred to as a form of open collaboration or

Eric Beidel

Dec 08, 2015

New White House Innovation Strategy Promotes Increase in Challenges and Prizes

The White House released an updated Strategy for American Innovation last week, calling again on government to tap the American public’s brain trust

Kelly Olson

Oct 29, 2015

Trends on Tuesday: Is Crowdsourcing the Future of Mobile Design and Development?

NASA recently announced the winners of a smartwatch app interface competition. A Canadian duo won the design competition, and NASA’s plan is to build the app with 2016 funding to have it available for astronauts to use when they are aboard the International Space Station. This is the first government smartwatch app development we’ve talked about

Jacob Parcell

Oct 13, 2015

How OSTP Crowdsourced A Crowdsourcing Toolkit

To promote crowdsourcing, one effective tool is, well, crowdsourcing. Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Federal Community of Practice for Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science (CCS) unveiled the Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing Toolkit. The toolkit contains information, resources, and best practices federal agencies can use to harness the power

Ashley Wichman

Sep 30, 2015

The API Briefing: Making a Difference One Microtask at a Time

I recently found an app that provides a great service through crowdsourcing. Be My Eyes connects visually-impaired people with volunteers. Using the smartphone’s camera, the volunteers can perform tasks such as reading an expiration date or helping someone navigate unfamiliar surroundings. This is not a federal app, but I wanted to highlight it to demonstrate how

Bill Brantley

Apr 22, 2015

USGS, Where Citizen Science Is for the Birds

“I tell the interns: In this lab, we’re all about failure. If you’re not failing, you’re not really doing anything.” –Sam Droege, USGS biologist, in Audubon magazine The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is actively working with citizen scientists to discover, collect, and organize a variety of scientific data that is

Tammi Marcoullier

Jan 20, 2015

Opening Government Through Federal Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is a critical corner of the digital government landscape, and our December theme articles have covered the topic from a variety of angles. Before we head into January, where we will discuss upcoming trends on the digital horizon, we sat down to learn more about the evolution and future direction of federal crowdsourcing initiatives

Ashley Wichman

Dec 30, 2014

Crowdsourcing Month: An Overview

This month we’ll be highlighting articles about crowdsourcing. These are the programs that use a variety of online mechanisms to get ideas, services, solutions, and products by asking a large, diverse crowd to contribute their expertise, talents, and skills. Among the mechanisms are hackathons, data jams, code-a-thons, prize competitions, workplace surveys, open ideation, micro-tasks or

Tammi Marcoullier

Dec 08, 2014

USGS Picture Puzzle: Do You See Changes to the Coast?

If you are a coastal resident, go to the beach, or are interested in digital volunteering, you can be a tremendous help in identifying and classifying changes that storms make to our coast after severe storms. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has launched iCoast, a Web application where you can view aerial photographs and help classify

Tammi Marcoullier

Sep 22, 2014

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