The master class in Gamification and Crowdsourcing opened the doors to the latest technologies
Master Class in Gamification and Crowdsourcing was held late in June at Varna Free University and was part of the eventful program, which involved scientists and experts from all over the world. Along with the current topics of hi-tech and business development, the calendar of events also included master classes in the field of cybersecurity, international politics, criminology and psychology.
"This is a very intense program which enables students to meet businesspeople, prominent representatives of science and practice, program with which we proved that the right way of the development of education is its internationalization," said in her address at the opening of the International Conference on Informatics and the accompanying events the President of Varna Free University "Chernorizets Hrabar", Prof. D Sc Anna Nedyalkova.
The Israeli scientists Eli Miron, PhD and Gilad Ravid, PhD from Ben-Gurion University - lecturers in the master class in Gamification and Crowdsourcing are among the coiners of the terms "gamification" and "crowdsourcing." They met for the second time with students and guests of Varna Free University "Chernorizets Hrabar." This time they are here to acquaint them with the latest technologies.
The growth of new technologies in different areas is significant in recent years. In 2014, services related to the marketing of consumer goods and attracting new customers created in game style and with similar mechanisms are gaining popularity comparable with that of such platforms as Facebook, eBay or Amazon, experts say. According to them, gamification will affect 25% of the restructured business processes by 2015 and will reach a market value of $ 2.8 billion in 2016. It is expected that within the next two years 70% of the companies included in Global 2000, will integrate the innovative practice. The prognosis for gamification is that it will penetrate all spheres of human activity.
Gamification is a clear trend for the use of game mechanics in non-gamеconditions such as innovations, marketing, training, health, social initiatives. The new trend aims to take the main features of the games as entertainment, action, transparency, design and challenge and to apply them to real purposes other than entertainment. In a business environment gamification can be used to create solutions for everyday activities, but also for training or to contact consumers. The main goal of gamification is to achieve greater commitment of the participants in a given process, change of their behaviour and stimulation of innovations. Business opportunities are enormous – from more active participation of customers to crowdsourcing for the purposes of innovation and improvement of the work of the different teams.
Crowdsourcingor open commitment literally means using the resources of the crowd and arises by analogy with Outside Resource Using or outsourcing. This is a practice of obtaining the necessary services, ideas or products by attracting a large group of people and most frequently these groups are organized online.
Projects are usually made public and anyone can join as a volunteer. Open commitment unites the efforts of a great number of people as each has its own contribution to the final result. The contracting company usually announces an award that is bound to the outcome of the project. In some cases this is remuneration, in others – the group can work only driven by moral incentives (personal satisfaction, honour, fame). The web crowdsourcingpractice is often used when looking for a solution to a problem by the users of a particular website, product or service.
Apart from the two key concepts – gamification and crowdsourcing, the master class also covered such topics as knowledge management and cloud computing. The purpose of everything we do when we select the topics and introduce you to these concepts is to motivate you, said Prof. Teodora Bakardzhieva, PhD, Director of the Technology Institute at Varna Free University and organizer of the master class. More than 20 years, one of the first private universities in Bulgaria has been carrying out its mission to be socially responsible entity of the civil society, oriented to students and their successful career.
