Modeling the Effects of Engagement Methods in Online Crowd-sourcing Platforms

Crowd-sourcing websites provide accessible platforms to collect and provide information, and their capabilities are growing in the field of education technology. However, most educational crowd-sourcing platforms lack any prioritized features to improve reader engagement. Because of engagement’s beneficial role in accelerating the information absorption process, the research involved developing a model crowd-sourcing platform dubbed “Interactpedia” to test the effects of online engagement features on information retention. Interactpedia included three online features, each modeling one engagement method – formative assessment, cognitive scaffolding, and instant feedback. Efficacy surveys conducted on both Interactpedia and Wikipedia show that content retention improved on average due to the engagement features. Interactpedia serves as a guide for all educational crowd-sourcing platforms to prioritize online engagement features without compromising the streamlined contributor process.