The term “microtasking” is often associated with crowdsourcing, which involves both the use of technology and a large number of people. But there’s a difference, according to Alix Dunn, executive director at The Engine Room, a U.S.-registered charity helping organizations navigate the use of data and technology.
Crowdsourcing is more about data collection — for example, when citizens take pictures of potholes across the city and send that to the government agency in charge of keeping roads safe for motorists and pedestrians. A number of nonprofit organizations use the concept in various ways. When it launched in 2007, for example, Ushahidi used crowdsourced information to keep track of and map election-related violence in Kenya.
Microtasking, meanwhile, is a much more tightly managed process, Dunn said. Unlike crowdsourcing, organizations conducting microtasking already have the data — large amounts of it — but will need the assistance of a large number of people to process it. Think of a librarian needing volunteers to digitally archive thousands of literary works from classics to historical memoirs, or a group of scientists needing help in sifting through thousands of images of breast cancer tumors to look at best treatment options for those suffering from the same disease.