Give it to the crowd! Maybe?

A common denominator that often influence how research and innovation actions could actually impact the application domains in a large-scale manner is funding. With respect to most projects related to game-based learning, costs and efforts associated to the pre-production and post-production stages, are often underestimated. How can we sustain an initiative beyond the barriers of resources? Can we increase uptake? Can we fully rely on our own intrinsic motivation to see change happens and spearhead regardless?

I’m rather interested to see if a ‘crowd’ model could help disrupt our research practices. Crowd sourcing is not new – see wikipedia, yahoo answers, etc., where the public can co-curate and share open information about any topics. Crowd science has also seen the general public involved in protein folding in the Foldit gaming research initiative. The emergence of crowd funding portals all over the world has also demonstrated that it is possible to capitalise on personal and intrinsic interests, which could translate into monetary pledges in return of a sense of ownership as well as some tangible momentos, etc.

Could and should we crowd source and fund research and co-own the outcomes and potential impact?