Crowdsourcing as a Tool for Knowledge Management
Jinfo Blog

By Elizabeth Trudell

Abstract

Libby Trudell looks at what a successful crowdsourcing implementation can tell us about managing a knowledge management process.

Item

Many information professionals view content developed through crowdsourcing as suspect or lacking in authority. Yet Wikipedia, with many thousands of contributors, has become the first source where users go to check a fact or get an overview of a topic. It is widely respected as a valid source of information. Why do we trust it?

The Wikipedia Model

In his book "Search Patterns", Peter Morville comments (p.39) that Wikipedia "motivates millions of users to become creators of content and metadata... it's a success story in which knowledge management and search combine to foster a participation economy where the reward is recognition."

Writers and editors contribute their knowledge and time partly because they are contributing to a greater good and also because there is a strong peer group within the editorial community, which recognises and respects contributors.

Quality-Tested

The quality has been assessed objectively. According to Wikipedia's own article about Wikipedia, a survey published in Nature in 2005 compared 42 science articles with Encyclopædia Britannica and found that "Wikipedia's level of accuracy approached the Encyclopædia Britannica's, and both had similar low rates of 'serious errors'." See the BBC and other sources for more information on the survey. More recent FreePint commentary also highlights Britannica's struggles to compete against the allure of Wikipedia's free-to-use model. 

One key factor is Wikipedia's strong governance infrastructure, with clearly identified guidelines for acceptable content and rules for editors and administrators. And, as seen in the excerpt above, facts are documented with citations, enabling sources to be visible.

What is most powerful about Wikipedia is the scale achieved through crowdsourcing, offering (as of 2012) more than 4 million articles, which is 30 times more than the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is this potential for scale which makes crowdsourcing so attractive in concept.

Crowdsourcing within the Enterprise

What does the Wikipedia approach tell us about using crowdsourcing to support knowledge management solutions within the enterprise? How can we enlist users in content creation and increase the scale of available content or metadata?

According to Robert Glushko book "The Discipline of Organizing", tagging, bookmarking and rating mechanisms are indeed being adapted by companies as techniques for knowledge management.

He also comments on the value inherent in organisational structure where "every user is authenticated to their true identities, and organisational norms and incentives shape the purposes and nature of user contributions" (p. 35).

Encourage Engagement

Despite Glushko's positive perspective, there have been plenty of instances where knowledge management solutions have failed to engage users to contribute content. Given the example of Wikipedia, here are some success factors to consider:

• Build in mechanisms for peer group recognition where contributions are measured and visible. This could include an enterprise-wide listing of new content added each week, highlighting the authors

• Focus on the findability of content so that contributors are assured that their content will be found by others within the enterprise, which rewards their time and effort

• Have sufficient investment in governance, including guidelines and editorial oversight, to sustain the implementation.

The recent Subscription article, Assessing the Credibility of Crowdsourced Content, provides more information on this essential subject.

« Blog