Learning from Wiki Surveys for Large-scale Collaborative Ideation
Governments are faced with complex policy issues, including public health, immigration, and economic inequality. To help address these issues, they can leverage the "creativity of the crowd." Wiki surveys are a great tool for this. They are both open to unanticipated information, like focus groups, and scalable and facilitate quantification of information, like traditional surveys. By now, more than 17,000 wiki surveys have been deployed, and have collected nearly a million ideas and more than 31 million votes. However, the existing methodology for wiki survey data has its shortcomings. It makes the unrealistic assumption that all people have similar preferences and all ideas are independent. Moreover, it is computationally inefficient. In this project, the principal investigator will develop efficient methodology for wiki survey data that does away with these assumptions. Niezink will also create an interactive web app that communicates wiki survey results.