Crowdsourcing vs. Citizen Science: A matter of terminology?

Businesses have sought to create real dialogue with their customers and gain new insights from them through this dialogue. Outsourcing some of their processes to their consumer base is one way they can form a stronger interaction and gain greater insight. This approach is commonly known as crowdsourcing. An example of crowdsourcing, and the companion project to this thesis, is Rate My Flat. Rate My Flat is a web application where tenants publically rate their flats on a number of factors that are, amongst other things, scientifically laden. These include, heating, insulation, and ventilation. Because of this, Rate My Flat might also be conceived of as a citizen science project. Citizen science involves members of the public actively taking part in aspects of scientific research such as the data collection or data analysis of a scientific investigation. Citizen science may be conceived as the science parallel of crowdsourcing as it involves parts of the scientific process being outsourced to members of the public. Because of its public nature, citizen science has garnered substantial interest in the field of science communication. Due to the seeming similarities between crowdsourcing and citizen science, there are questions about whether they are different from one-another, and if they are different, what the distinction may be. After all, both crowdsourcing and citizen science have advanced rapidly alongside the rise in available digital technologies and both are reaching ever-wider audiences who are then completing increasingly complex tasks. This thesis aims to ascertain whether there is any substantial difference between the two, or whether the distinction is purely a matter of terminology. We will look at examples and exemplar case studies of citizen science and will look at as an example of crowdsourcing: Rate My Flat. Armed with the knowledge of case studies of both crowdsourcing and citizen science, this thesis assesses whether citizen science is a form of crowdsourcing, or whether there is any substantial distinction between the two