{"id":34,"date":"2016-06-14T17:37:50","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T17:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/?p=34"},"modified":"2016-06-14T17:37:50","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T17:37:50","slug":"key-insights-from-the-first-ever-data-crowdfunding-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/2016\/06\/14\/key-insights-from-the-first-ever-data-crowdfunding-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Insights from the First-Ever Data Crowdfunding Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-35\" src=\"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/funded.png\" alt=\"CrowdSignals.io 134% Funded\" width=\"841\" height=\"452\" srcset=\"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/funded.png 841w, http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/funded-300x161.png 300w, http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/funded-768x413.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>CrowdSignals.io was funded successfully at 134% of our target. To the best of our knowledge this is the first-ever example of a crowdfunded data set. So while the experiment is still ongoing we wanted to share some of our findings from the fund raising campaign!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/contributions-field.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-43 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/contributions-field.png\" alt=\"Contributions by Field\" width=\"1122\" height=\"501\" srcset=\"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/contributions-field.png 1122w, http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/contributions-field-300x134.png 300w, http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/contributions-field-768x343.png 768w, http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/contributions-field-1024x457.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Backers and Contributions<br \/>\n<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0We received support from groups\u00a0representing several thousand researchers and students globally and across a wide variety of disciplines. While the percentage of funds received from each discipline (see above) in part reflects the communities we marketed to, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/03\/23\/technology\/crowdsignals-aims-to-create-a-marketplace-for-smartphone-sensor-data.html?_r=0\">New York Times article on CrowdSignals.io<\/a> attracted support from a much more diverse group.\u00a0 As shown above, a majority of funds came from start-ups that paid to include a custom ground truth label in\u00a0the CrowdSignals.io data set. Academic and industrial researchers working on the Internet of Things contributed the next largest portion of funding at over $3500 \u2013 researcher in Sensors, Data Science, Networks, and HCI formed the next largest segments followed by a variety of other disciplines including Data Journalism, Finance, Psychology, and Urban Planning among others.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also interesting to note that while the majority of contributions came in small denominations\u00a0(&lt;=$50) from academic researchers (104 of 158 total contributions), the bulk of funds came from groups that wanted to add their own ground truth label to the data.\u00a0 The chart below shows the distribution of funds received\u00a0across available Indiegogo perks.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/contributions-perk.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-36 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/contributions-perk.png\" alt=\"contributions-perk\" width=\"712\" height=\"491\" srcset=\"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/contributions-perk.png 712w, http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/contributions-perk-300x207.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Some Key Insights on Data Crowdfunding<br \/>\n<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0We&#8217;ll learn more as we continue the\u00a0CrowdSignals.io experiment, but several key insights regarding the funding process have emerged.\u00a0We share them here in case other individuals or institutions are interested in crowdfunded data collection.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Insight: Institutional approval chains are\u00a0not a natural match for the excitement and urgency of crowdfunding.\u00a0<\/strong> Nearly all of our backers are from academic, commercial, or non-profit institutions (very few independent individuals). As such, many needed to obtain institutional approvals to: (1) use funds to purchase data via\u00a0crowdfunding, and\/or (2) use the CrowdSignals.io data for institutional research. For many backers, both (1) and (2) took days or weeks from the time they decided to back CrowdSignals.io to the time the approvals were obtained. We found that for some institutions it was helpful to prepare a customized invoice and data license to accompany\u00a0the Indiegogo transaction. The CrowdSignals.io &#8220;IRB Kit&#8221; was also a useful document for academic institutions that needed approval from internal review boards or ethics committees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Insight: Researchers and data scientists are busy people and most do not frequent crowdfunding sites &#8211; the best way to reach them is direct email, followed by\u00a0Facebook,\u00a0then\u00a0LinkedIn.<\/strong> A majority of our backers are researchers or data scientists at large institutions &#8211; all are very busy people, many have\u00a0overfull inboxes\u00a0and slow response times when it comes to\u00a0communication outside their immediate circle of colleagues. It helped to start getting the word out via email and social media about 6 months before the campaign launched. However, a significant effort was required to connect with many backers\u00a0even immediately before and after launch. The most effective method proved to be\u00a0personal\u00a0follow-up\u00a0emails (sorry if we spammed you! \ud83d\ude42 ) &#8211; over 60% of backers came to our campaign page via an email link. Facebook and LinkedIn were also effective in\u00a0advertising the campaign to large pre-existing groups (e.g., professional IoT, Machine Learning, and\/or Deep Learning groups). We also found that a majority\u00a0of our backers had never used Indiegogo before.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Insight: The greatest perceived value is\u00a0in customization of the data set. <\/strong>As shown above, most of the funds received were for adding a custom ground truth label to the data collection campaign. \u00a0In this way, several backers were able to customize the data to answer a particular question of interest at their institution. \u00a0While research has shown that even completely unlabeled data holds significant value (e.g., it can be mined to reveal significant patterns, one stream of data can be used as a label for another), our observation is that customization is critical for a crowdfunded mobile data set. \u00a0Most researchers backing the project indicated that they were specifically interested in the labels we are collecting or that they would need their own labels in order to make use of\u00a0the data. \u00a0This may be different for different types of data (e.g., climate, astronomy), but it does raise the question of whether or not a &#8220;one size fits all&#8221; data set is actually achievable\u00a0in this area of research.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We&#8217;ll share additional insights as we move forward\u00a0and would love to hear any feedback you have in the comments below or by email at <a href=\"mailto:organizers@crowdsignals.io\">organizers@crowdsignals.io<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CrowdSignals.io was funded successfully at 134% of our target. To the best of our knowledge this is the first-ever example of a crowdfunded data set. So while the experiment is still ongoing we wanted to share some of our findings from the fund raising campaign! Backers and Contributions \u00a0 \u00a0We received support from groups\u00a0representing several &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/2016\/06\/14\/key-insights-from-the-first-ever-data-crowdfunding-campaign\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Key Insights from the First-Ever Data Crowdfunding Campaign&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44,"href":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crowdsignals.io\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}