Putting the Pieces Back Together Again
Thomas W. Malone, Jeffrey V. Nickerson, Robert Laubacher, Laur Hesse Fisher, Patrick De Boer, Yue Han, W. Ben Towne · 2017
A key issue, whenever people work together to solve a complex problem, is how to divide the problem into parts done by different people and combine the parts into a solution for the whole problem. This paper presents a novel way of doing this with groups of contests called contest webs. Based on the analogy of supply chains for physical products, the method provides incentives for people to (a) reuse work done by themselves and others, (b) simultaneously explore multiple ways of combining interchangeable parts, and (c) work on parts of the problem where they can contribute the most.