Identifying and Prioritizing Dimensions of Crowdsourcing in Libraries, Archives, Museums and Galleries Using Experts' Views

Crowdsourcing is a phenomenon in which any organization uses the population as a resource to perform various tasks and find the best solution for any problem using collective effort and wisdom. By attracting participation, crowdsourcing helps to increase communication, new ideas and make organizations productive. This study aimed at prioritizing the components of crowdsourcing in libraries, archives, museums and galleries in order to provide a conceptual model for better understanding.

This qualitative-quantitative research has been conducted by using systematic literature review and Delphi method in order to confirm the identified indicators, and interpretive structural modeling. The statistical population of the systematic review in this research includes research articles related to the basics of crowdsourcing in libraries, archives, museums and galleries from the period 2006 to 2022 AD for English language sources and the period 1385 to 1400 solar for Persian language sources. Based on the Critical Appraisal Skills Program and screening process, 54 works were selected for further review and analysis. The statistical community of experts in Delphi panel and prioritization of components was formed by 25 experts from libraries, archives, museums and galleries who were selected by snowball method.

First, the aspects and indicators of crowdsourcing in libraries, archives, museums and galleries model were derived from the theoretical literature. They were confirmed by questionnaire conducted with experts in libraries, archives, museums and galleries. The output of this phase contained 76 indicators drawn from twelve aspects. According to the results of data analysis and the ideas of the experts, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) method was employed to make relationship between indicators and aspects for designing the model. The result was an integrated model for crowdsourcing in libraries, archives, museums and galleries at eleven levels. Moreover, the aspects of crowdsourcing were divided into four levels according to the power of guidance and influence of each aspect on the other aspects and the degree of dependence of each aspects to other one.

The existing leveling shows that maintaining participation and interaction with a degree of dependence of 12 is the most impressive and Goal setting with a guiding power of 12 has the most guiding and influencing power. Goal setting was recognized as the main aspect, which contained the bases of the model. For starting and controlling any crowdsourcing, managers ought to consider this aspect quite seriously.The characteristics of the Crowd and Evaluation have weak driving power and little dependence on the system. The characteristics of Training, Crowdsourcing Platform, Reward, Motivation and Maintaining Participation and Interaction have a weak guiding power, but they have a high dependence power on other aspects. Goal setting, Crowdsourcing Ethics, Crowdsourcing Management, Content features and Task features are independent aspects with high guiding power on the system and low dependence power on other aspects. They have the most impact on other aspects and accept the least impact from other aspects. Maintaining Participation and Interaction was recognized as the most sensible aspect of crowdsourcing.