---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jan H. Spyridakis <jansp@u.washington.edu> Date: Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 10:36 AM Subject: [dub] HCDE 521, October 31 - Kate Starbird To: Hello, Please come and hear HCDE Assistant Professor Kate Starbird present at the HCDE Autumn Seminar Series (HCDE 521) Wednesday, October 31 from 5:00 to 5:50 p.m. in Mary Gates Hall 241 at the University of Washington. Details of her talk are listed below. More information about the HCDE 521 seminar series is available online: http://hcde.uw.edu/521. Seminar Title: Crowds, Crisis and Convergence: Unpacking "Crowdsourcing" in the Context of Disaster Abstract: The potential of connected crowds to solve complex problems (that neither individuals nor computers can solve alone) has been the focus of considerable research in recent years across disciplines and certainly within the HCDE field. Though there are several perspectives for approaching crowd work, “crowdsourcing” has become a popular, umbrella term for the phenomenon. In this talk, I will work unpack the crowdsourcing term within the context of disaster. In our hyper-connected world, large-scale disaster events are acting as catalysts for mass “convergence” online, which functions both to generate massive volumes of information and to organize that information. Pulling from multiple studies of crowd work during crisis events, I will describe how the crowd attempts to solve complex problems and address gaps in response efforts through digital volunteerism and other productive crowd work. I will then use these empirical findings to demonstrate the diversity of crowd work and to expose what a focus on “crowdsourcing” obscures. Hope to see you there! Jan Spyridakis Jan Spyridakis Professor and Chair Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering University of Washington Box 352315 Seattle, WA 98195 206-685-1557 (fax 206-543-8858) http://www.hcde.uw.edu/jansp _______________________________________________ dub mailing list dub@dub.washington.edu http://dub.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/dub