Crowdsourcing:
THE BUILDING BLOCKS
for data improvements
& data acquisition
Research + Concept Proposal
This is an Industry Research Project presented for a Master's degree in Digital Management.
* To respect client's confidentiality, some details & information is replaced and kept confidential. Actual research paper and prototype to be presented in person, upon request.
Problem Statement
How might we obtain reliable and high-quality data and information efficiently through crowdsourcing?
Background
A good amount of resources (time and cost) is being invested into data acquisition and data processing to ensure data completeness, consistency and very importantly, data accuracy. However, data analytics and insights are only as good as the data, data will never be perfect.
The quality of the data will affect the confidence of usage, and impact the credibility of the product or even the organisation itself. This is especially critical for a startup company.
After some discussion with the CTO, we decided to explored the potential of using crowdsourcing as a means for the organisation to obtain reliable and high-quality data efficiently.
The project will be focusing primarily on Singapore residential market; findings and recommendation are derived from the real estate industry’s practices and regulations in Singapore.
GOALS &
OBJECTIVES
Explore and propose crowdsourcing method/s that can be beneficial for acquiring high-quality information and data.
The proposal should consider the following objectives:
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Contribute to improving the overall data quality; provide more meaningful analytics and insights
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Improve user confidence; present a more complete and accurate information
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Increase product/service/data engagement
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Future viability i.e. efficient and sustainable
THE APPROACH
To problem solve effectively, I needed to understand the facts about data quality before diverging into exploring crowdsourcing methods objectively in order to have a more holistic assessment.
I started by looking about the quality of the data within the organisation, understanding how the data is being used, and how the data is connected internally.
Together with findings from the research, surveys and interviews, I was able to
1. Redefine my perception of data quality;
2. Identify the valuable data pieces;
3. Discover an opportunity – a gap to be filled;
4. Design a solution
THE PROPOSAL
An autonomous community-based platform that allows users free access to the property information available on the organisation’s database. Property information such as land information, property records and history, turnover rates and AVM values for their analysis work.
The platform is like an inner circle where every member in the community can collaborate, co-broke, share knowledge, grow their professional footprints while contributing in shaping the future standards of the industry.
Members can view, post and claim listings and past transactions records. Members can also put up requests for help – for more insights, advice, information or leads.
A combination of gamification incentive mechanisms is applied on the platform to motivate members participation.
The ultimate goal of the platform is to bring the industry together; to not regard each other as competitors or adversaries but rather comrades that come together to upkeep the standards of professionalism and as a result become more productive and efficient.
3-Step Easy
Account Setup
The agent’s CEA Licence Number is used to verify personal information, and to retrieve listings and transaction records found from the platform’s database that is listed under the same licence number.
1. Register & verify
2. Claim listings
3. Share your expertise
Home Screen
Important tools and functions are available at a glance. Users can check out each other’s status, earned badges, participation history, activities records and active groups involvements.
Gamification
Gamification mechanism such as leader boards, badges and user tiers are used to motivate participation.
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Leaderboard achievements vary based on the platform’s usage records of the month. This is to reinforce the fact that all contributions and activities on the platform are important and valuable.
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Redeem credit points for rewards such as 360 Virtual Scans, Property Reports, Valuation Assessments, online course credits or other third party rewards from external partners.
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To ensure that all referrals are made responsible, all referral performance will be tagged along as part of the referee’s credibility score as well.
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Credit points are confidential and not available for public view. Points are earned for task requests such as verification of a new user’s profile, verification of data input, or data error reports.
Personalised AI/ML
with listings linking
This feature uses machine learning to show the relationship of properties within proximity that might affect a listing. Collaborative filter provide ‘similar’ listing recommendations; users are able to ‘remove’ or ‘relink’ any of the recommendations. The algorithm learns and reacts to the user's preference for more personalised recommendations.
No. of views for the listing
No. of related/ similar listings
Price changes on related listings
WHAT'S NEXT
The proposal was present to the client, CTO Mr. Patrick Yan. The feedback was generally positive and the client has been very receptive with the proposed concept of an autonomous community-based platform.
The client feels that Singapore market is ready for it, but still uncertain how the other countries in the region will respond to the platform. We all agree that information transparency is important. Agencies and agents should stop looking at each other as competitors, but as business partners instead.
From my observation, many of the discussions were circling back and forth on the incentive mechanisms – incentivising to encourage collaboration and real time data input/updates. At this point, the research has led us to discovering an opportunity that fulfils the objective of acquiring high-quality data. There are, however, several areas of in-depth research that are still needed to push the idea from concept into development.
Screen recording of the prototype
indepth research...
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Points to Rewards
Points and leaderboards are the heart of gamification, used to motivate participation. When the points are awarded too quickly, users either abuse it or lose interest in it. On the other hand, when it takes too much effort to earn the points, users do not see the need to ‘work’ for it, and as a result lagged in participation as well.
The point system needs to be designed carefully taking into consideration the platform’s objective, how quickly or slowly the points are earned, and the effort required to earn them.
Points to rewards exchange on the other hand, would require consideration from the users perspective in terms of the effort to earn the points vs value of the reward. I would like to research more into the area and design experiments to test the feasibility of it.
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Scalability and Adaptability
Although the concept of an autonomous community platform is adaptable in different countries, it is possible that the exact same features and incentives mechanisms might not be useful to motivate users to engage.
Using the prototype as a starting point, I would like to expand the scope of the research and conduct user interviews with users from other countries like Malaysia and Indonesia to explore the adaptability of the platform. Are there regulations or practices that might contradict with the objective of the platform? Will the point and rewards system work across different countries?
* To respect client's confidentiality, some details & information is replaced and kept confidential. Actual research paper and prototype to be presented in person, upon request.