Employing digital crowdsourced information resources: managing the emerging information commons

This paper examines the potential for collaborations between formal science professionals and loosely connected online groups that employ crowdsourcing within the information commons. It considers the differences between scientists and other online groups’ preferred modes of managing information production, circulation and application, distinguishing between ‘constituted’ and ‘adaptive’ authority and examining the extent to which these groups are engaged in curating the information they generate for the purposes of social problem solving. A small sample of crowdsourcing initiatives, drawn from the fields of astronomy and environmental science and crisis and emergency response, is examined based on desk research to illustrate the potential for boundary crossing between the domains of formal science and increasingly active loosely connected online groups which are engaged in activities giving rise to big data sets that may be ephemeral or may become constituted as ‘useful knowledge’. The conclusion suggests several measures that would strengthen the foundations for collaboration and indicates avenues for further empirical research.