3 Things to Understand About Curation in Learning and the Wisdom of the Crowd

3 Things to Understand About Curation in Learning and the Wisdom of the Crowd

Curation has been a part of human information recording since the beginning. We have always been shifting, selecting, organizing, and presenting information to give it meaning and relevance. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, envisioned the internet as a platform that allows anyone to access any document, disseminate their own documents, and organize the entire collection of documents. Digital curation, therefore, becomes crucial in taking control of the vast amount of digital content available and organizing it into meaningful collections.

In Clay Shirky's book "Here Comes Everybody," he highlighted the problem of "filter failure" rather than information overload. The abundance of information and the use of tags to filter it only made the situation worse. People were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of relevant information and ended up not paying attention to any of it. This led to two types of overload: situational overload and ambient overload.

Situational overload is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You need a specific piece of information quickly, but it is buried within a lot of other irrelevant information. On the other hand, ambient overload is when you are faced with a haystack-sized pile of needles that you want to engage with. With the advancement of filters, we are constantly receiving more and more of what we want, adding to the overwhelming amount of information to process.

Digital curation serves as an intermediate layer between search engines and information consumers. It helps learners find relevant and useful learning content easily, supporting them just in time or just in case. It allows individuals to navigate through the abundance of information and access what they need at the right moment.

The concept of the wisdom of the crowd further emphasizes the power of collective opinions over that of a single expert. The collective opinion of a group of individuals tends to be more accurate than that of an individual. This phenomenon can be seen in various examples, including non-human ones like the behavior of fish or scientific experiments.

The wisdom of the crowd works because individual judgments contain idiosyncratic noise, and taking the average over a large number of responses cancels out this noise. Aristotle believed that when many individuals come together, their collective opinion can be better than that of individuals themselves. This concept has been studied and validated through various experiments.

Researchers have developed techniques to tap into the wisdom of the crowd, such as the "surprisingly popular" technique. By asking individuals for their own answer and what they think the popular opinion will be, the averaged difference between the two can indicate the correct answer. However, for the wisdom of the crowd to be effective, the crowd needs to be independent and diversified. A variety of answers will cancel out extremes and allow the collective wisdom to emerge.

It is important to note that relying on individual cognition alone may not always yield the best results. Individual judgments are subject to stochastic noise and may not consistently produce the best answer. Multiple judgments from the same person may not surpass the accuracy of asking just one other individual. Averaging a large number of judgments from different people can eliminate random errors but not systematic errors that affect the opinions of the entire crowd.

In conclusion, understanding the power of curation in learning and the wisdom of the crowd can greatly enhance our ability to navigate through the vast amount of information available. Here are three actionable pieces of advice to make the most of these concepts:

1. Embrace digital curation: Take control of the digital content available to you by curating it into meaningful collections. Use tools and platforms that allow you to organize and access relevant learning content easily.

2. Seek diverse perspectives: When faced with a problem or question, tap into the wisdom of the crowd by seeking input from a diverse group of individuals. Consider their collective opinions and average out the responses to gain insights and make informed decisions.

3. Be aware of cognitive biases: While the wisdom of the crowd can be powerful, it is important to be mindful of cognitive biases that can affect the opinions of the entire crowd. Stay open-minded and critically evaluate the information and perspectives you receive.

By incorporating these practices into your learning journey, you can harness the power of curation and collective wisdom to navigate the overwhelming amount of information and make better-informed decisions.