Presenting a crowdsourcing approach that enables open brainstorming for the best research projects at the University of California, San Francisco.

1. Engaging Many Minds Katja Reuter* , Rachael Sak, Maninder Kahlon *Presenter: Manager, Online Communications, Clinical & Translational Science Institute (CTSI), University of California, San Francisco Crowdsourcing: Virtual Community Collaborations in Academia

2. Expanding Communications ... to enable new ways for researchers to interact, communicate and collaborate.

4. Using a crowdsourcing approach to enable idea generation as a collaborative endeavor. Transforming the types of research questions that are generated and how teams are convened.

5. What is Crowdsourcing? “ the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor to an undefined, large group of people or community (a "crowd"), through an open call”. WIKIPEDIA

6. Finding and leveraging the enormous potential of the “collective brain” has a history outside of research.

8. We launched 3 pilot projects at the University of California, San Francisco to crowdsource ideas for the best research projects.

9. Feb 2009 March 2009 July 2009 Target Audience CTSI Leadership ~35 UCSF Research Community ~7500 people CTSI Communit y/ Affiliates ~300 Time Period 4 weeks 6 weeks 5 months ARRA: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Ideas for Economic ARRA Stimulus Funding Ideas for CTSI Year 4 Ideas for CTSI Renewal Grant Proposal

10. What does the tool look like?

13. An Exemplary Discussion Thread

14. As part of the process, the tool itself was iteratively improved based on user input .

16. Unique Page Views = # of sessions during which the forum was viewed one or more times Targeted Audience Ideas Submitted Comments Submitted Votes Submitted % Comments by Unique Page Views % Votes by Unique Page Views CTSI Year 4 ~35 18 41 31 19% 14% Economic ARRA Stimulus Funding ~300 27 39 75 8% 15% CTSI Renewal Grant Proposal ~7500 53 47 65 9% 12%

17. The Process Initiative supported and promoted by CTSI leadership ... Initiative supported and promoted by CTSI leadership ... Initiative supported and promoted by CTSI leadership ...

18. CTSI leadership evaluated and triaged submitted ideas, providing continual feedback online and via in-person meetings.

19. Idea Development and Cross-Pollination among other Virtual Communities Promising ideas that could not be funded initially were transferred to the subsequent “Open Forum” initiative.

20. What did our users say?