The PyBossa team is extremely excited to launch a brand new version of the PyBossa-powered crowdsourcing platform, Crowdcrafting. The new platform is faster, more reliable, really user friendly, more secure and – most importantly – very pretty.
What is Crowcrafting?
Crowdcrafting.org is an opensource platform that provides a highly convenient framework around which crowdsourced projects can be constructed, allowing you to connect with people from all around the world to solve problems quickly and efficiently. Volunteers can help with image classification, transcription, geocoding and much more.
What’s new?
Aesthetics
Thanks to developer Jorge Correa, the new Crowdcrafting site looks amazing, with a sleek, clean and modern design – so any projects you create will look fabulous.
Speed and efficiency
For PyBossa lead developer Daniel Lombraña Gonzalez, the most impressive improvement to Crowdcrafting is:
“The new cache system that allows us to load pages really fast – we can render pages in less than 200ms!”
Indeed, Crowdcrafting has enjoyed a huge performance upgrade with the average loading time for projects reduced from 107 seconds to 7 seconds.
Usability
Creating a new project could not be easier – just fill in three fields and you’re done. Crowdcrafting can also provide templates for a different types of project, such volunteer sensing projects (for example, observing lichen to monitor air quality) or geo-referencing projects. We’ve also added a new CSV/JSON download feature allowing users to download tasks and answers easily.
Community
A strong community is at the heart of every successful crowdsourced project. The new Crowdcrafting site provides a community space where users and volunteers can interact and share ideas. This incorporates a new ‘activity feed’ which reports live community action, such as new project creation and blog releases, as they happen. Users can also upload avatars for their projects and profiles for a greater sense of identity.
The cloud
PyBossa senior developer Marvin Reimer has had his head in the cloud of late as he prepares Crowdcrafting for instant cloud deployment (for example on Amazon, Openstack and MAAS) with Ubuntu Juju which, he reckons, “is a wonderful tool for server orchestration and deployment”.
Security
PyBossa junior developer Alejandro Domínguez has been working hard to make Crowdcrafting more secure by developing better cross-site request forgery (CSRF) protection. Users can now also control who contributes to projects by passwording entry.
Get involved!
Crowdcrafting has loads of awesome projects running to which you can contribute. If you ever fancied tracking antimatter particles at CERN, monitoring light pollution from the International Space Station, fighting the spread of malaria in Africa, classifying arthropod interactions or helping in the aftermath of a natural disaster – give Crowdcrafting a visit.
