Exploiting the wisdom of the crowds for characterizing and connecting heterogeneous resources

Heterogeneous content is an inherent problem for cross-system search, recommendation and personalization. In this paper we investigate differences in topic coverage and the impact of topicstopics in different kinds of Web services. We use entity extraction and categorization to create ‘fin-gerprints ’ that allow for meaningful comparison. As a basis taxonomy, we use the 23 main categories of Wikipedia Cat-egory Graph, which has been assembled over the years by the wisdom of the crowds. Following a proof of concept of our approach, we analyze differences in topic coverage and topic impact. The results show many differences between Web services like Twitter, Flickr and Delicious, which re-flect users ’ behavior and the usage of each system. The paper concludes with a user study that demonstrates the benefits of fingerprints over traditional textual methods for recommendations of heterogeneous resources

Leveraging the power of creative crowds for innovative brands: the eYeka crowdsourcing initiatives

The thesis tried to move beyond the Crowdsourcing phenomenon intended as a mere micro-task production outlining key features of the main typologies of contest which a firm could select in pursuing this Business Model. The dissertation thus advice companies on what kind of contests format is more suitable to be implemented in order to reach the desired objective, by tailoring not only challenges but also incentive mechanisms to engage the right crowd even in terms of motivational aspectsope

Testing the stability of “wisdom of crowds” judgments of search results over time and their similarity with the search engine rankings

PURPOSE: One of the under-explored aspects in the process of user information seeking behaviour is influence of time on relevance evaluation. It has been shown in previous studies that individual users might change their assessment of search results over time. It is also known that aggregated judgments of multiple individual users can lead to correct and reliable decisions; this phenomenon is known as the “wisdom of crowds”. The aim of this study is to examine whether aggregated judgments will be more stable and thus more reliable over time than individual user judgments. DESIGN/METHODS: In this study two simple measures are proposed to calculate the aggregated judgments of search results and compare their reliability and stability to individual user judgments. In addition, the aggregated “wisdom of crowds” judgments were used as a means to compare the differences between human assessments of search results and search engine’s rankings. A large-scale user study was conducted with 87 participants who evaluated two different queries and four diverse result sets twice, with an interval of two months. Two types of judgments were considered in this study: 1) relevance on a 4-point scale, and 2) ranking on a 10-point scale without ties. FINDINGS: It was found that aggregated judgments are much more stable than individual user judgments, yet they are quite different from search engine rankings. Practical implications: The proposed “wisdom of crowds” based approach provides a reliable reference point for the evaluation of search engines. This is also important for exploring the need of personalization and adapting search engine’s ranking over time to changes in users preferences. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This is a first study that applies the notion of “wisdom of crowds” to examine the under-explored phenomenon in the literature of “change in time” in user evaluation of relevance

A Multi-Dimensional Approach for Framing Crowdsourcing Archetypes

All different kinds of organizations – business, public, and non-governmental alike – are becoming aware of a soaring complexity in problem solving, decision making and idea development. In a multitude of circumstances, multidisciplinary teams, high-caliber skilled resources and world-class computer suites do not suffice to cope with such a complexity: in fact, a further need concerns the sharing and ‘externalization’ of tacit knowledge already existing in the society. In this direction, participatory tendencies flourishing in the interconnected society in which we live today lead ‘collective intelligence’ to emerge as key ingredient of distributed problem solving systems going well beyond the traditional boundaries of organizations. Resulting outputs can remarkably enrich decision processes and creative processes carried out by indoor experts, allowing organizations to reap benefits in terms of opportunity, time and cost. Taking stock of the mare magnum of promising opportunities to be tapped, of the inherent diversity lying among them, and of the enormous success of some initiative launched hitherto, the thesis aspires to provide a sound basis for the clear comprehension and systematic exploitation of crowdsourcing. After a thorough literature review, the thesis explores new ways for formalizing crowdsourcing models with the aim of distilling a brand-new multi-dimensional framework to categorize various crowdsourcing archetypes. To say it in a nutshell, the proposed framework combines two dimensions (i.e., motivations to participate and organization of external solvers) in order to portray six archetypes. Among the numerous significant elements of novelty brought by this framework, the prominent one is the ‘holistic’ approach that combines both profit and non-profit, trying to put private and public sectors under a common roof in order to examine in a whole corpus the multi-faceted mechanisms for mobilizing and harnessing competence and expertise which are distributed among the crowd. Looking at how the crowd may be turned into value to be internalized by organizations, the thesis examines crowdsourcing practices in the public as well in the private sector. Regarding the former, the investigation leverages the experience into the PADGETS project through action research – drawing on theoretical studies as well as on intensive fieldwork activities – to systematize how crowdsourcing can be fruitfully incorporated into the policy lifecycle. Concerning the private realm, a cohort of real cases in the limelight is examined – having recourse to case study methodology – to formalize different ways through which crowdsourcing becomes a business model game-changer. Finally, the two perspectives (i.e., public and private) are coalesced into an integrated view acting as a backdrop for proposing next-generation governance model massively hinged on crowdsourcing. In fact, drawing on archetypes schematized, the thesis depicts a potential paradigm that government may embrace in the coming future to tap the potential of collective intelligence, thus maximizing the utilization of a resource that today seems certainly underexploited

When the crowd becomes shareholder: an enquiry on Italian Equity Crowdfunding initiatives

This thesis aims at providing a valuable contribution in the field of Italian Equity Crowdfunding, which is currently experiencing its most successful period and consequently is being characterized by continuous updates in recorded volumes; symptomatically, the amount of equity subscribed in the first nine months of 2017 has already overcome the whole subscriptions obtained since the first deal has been hosted in 2014. The main research areas that have been covered consist in the platforms’ ecosystem and the whole Italian ECF campaigns launched until September 2017; for both of them descriptive and statistical analyses have been conducted, aiming at representing in the most effective way the current status of pla