CROWD SOURCING OF BASE DOCUMENTS

Daily Post 1413

CROWD SOURCING OF BASE DOCUMENTS

Wikipedia is the biggest single exercise in crowd sourcing, a successful one, with huge amount of ease, yet with robust inbuilt checks and balances. It has incorporated open declarations on the Wikipedia page regarding the quality of the article and its authentication. The roadmap to improving the page is also suggested as an advisory. It seems to be rarely challenged. Does it provide a model which can be replicated? What is the main challenge? How difficult it is to create a dispersed editorial board, free, fair, transparent and being correct nearly every time? For small or big, comprehensive or minuscule, the professional treatment meted out is just extraordinary. Can this model be used to crowdsource Base Documents.

Base Documents are at the core of an area of study or operation, the kernel so to say. The analogy of the constitution to a country would not be out of place. Say one document technically detailing the changed cyber security scenario with the changed work from home scenario. Crowd sourcing can put best of the brains in this field. Once it is created, it would become the gold standard. First, the expert team – the edit board, should be created. Anyone can try his luck as far as he fulfils the criteria to contribute. Then we will be able to list out the next level of Base Documents in specific areas mentioned in the main document. Once created, it will add to the comfort level of professionals to operationalise through these Blueprints, rather than groping in the dark.

Given the diverse nature of the topics today and it’s interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature, it is imperative to follow this model. Best of the teams by single agency or govt organisation will not be able deliver the same quality and depth, even with their best efforts. Would it have been possible for any agency to create Wikipedia. We live in a world where crowdsourcing should be the norm. Nothing else will work out to either the satisfaction of all and certainly not to everybody’s utility. These documents are like assembly lines, you ought to have created before you get into production. Unfortunately, we have to manage without them. Even more unfortunate is the fact, that every one feels that they have created the best model, and self certify themselves.

If not for anything else, the sheer drudgery of finding a worthwhile solution / mechanism will deserve this effort. The online classes, given the pandemic have developed of umpteen varieties. If there were to be an authenticated Base Document created at the interregnum of schooling and technology, it would have benefited all educational institutions immensely. It would have added to their confidence, as they doubtfully move ahead in their forced online journey. Think of another Base Document on multimedia course content creation for both our main schooling boards. With the initial impetus, they would have certainly liked to change. A Base Document called National CCTV Protocol, can revolutionise the output of the thousands of crores pumped in this technology for a variety of purposes, in public and private sector alike. The areas and issues are endless. We have to make a beginning, the brains, technology tools and expertise of it’s creation are all available.

WITHOUT THE BASE DOCUMENTS, THE BASE GOES MISSING.

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