The New York Times recently tried writing a story by crowdsourcing the information instead of having a regular reporter on the job. The Times was looking to tap into raw talent and real experience for the story. Although the story did not come out with quite as high of quality the Times would expect from a regular writer, it allowed for readers to hear about something that the paper would not usually cover. The New York Times also was able to include news about an interesting topic that they might not be able to pay a writer to research.

To read more about the story click here.

To read the crowdsourced article on the New York Times site, click here.

What kind of stuff would you suggest if you were asked to help design a car? What if it was a race car? In this case the car in question is the Rally Fighter by Local Motors. The company browsed a number of internet sources for help, asking the public what they thought. The result? An off-road race car that will get 36 mpg on the street and 30 mpg while racing.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/30/vroom-for-everyone-local-motors-unveiling-crowdsourced-rally-fi/

This article talks about a professor at Duke who plans to utilize crowd sourcing in her classroom. She will be allowing all of the students to see each others assignments and do the grading. The professor believes that the students will then know exactly what is expected of them and not have to guess at what she may want out of an assignment. I think this idea is a great way to get students more involved in the classroom and allow them to contribute to assessment.