CROWDSOURCING:

Refers to benefiting from “talents of the crowd”, in other words it is an exchange of knowledge and experiences, process of creating something new as well as a problem solving distributed to a large, scattered group of people. It is “brainstorming 2.0” –  successfully used by companies seeking for instance opinions about introducing a new product into the market, by research institutes conducting wide scale research or by NGOs running projects with participation of internet users. The biggest advantage of crowdsourcing is a possibility to ask for opinions of people with different experiences, skills and views – in this way it is easier to find a best idea or solution. [more]

CITIZEN JOURNALISM:

Citizen journalism encompasses projects carried out by citizens, with help of which they can take part in determining the way local and nationwide media function. A citizen journalist is able to comment on the events taking place in their environment, to publish reports on-line and to upload photos, and video materials. In Poland, local news portals created by residents, as well as nationwide portals, are steadily gaining popularity, mainly because thanks to them every citizen has a chance to inform others about current Polish issues. [more]

E-LEARNING:

E-learning means: education via the Internet Thanks to e-learning knowledge is freed from the school and able to appeal to people by being presented in an interesting and accessible form. New technologies enable us to teach others and to learn without even leaving our homes. The most prominent examples are: e-learning courses, asking experts for advice, or the exchange of personal experiences between internet users. [more]

KNOWLEDGE GATHERING:

Internet is a great database of knowledge – you can find there almost everything! professionals like: financiers, IT, graphic artists, mathematicians, humanists and many others share their knowledge by posting articles, notes, comments or on-line debates. Contrary to the popular belief of some, the knowledge gathered on the Internet can be the same professional as knowledge gathered in encyclopaedias – there are teams of moderators on many portals providing reliability of posted information. The knowledge gathering type of e-volunteering is about creating sources of common knowledge, free encyclopaedias, blogs, portals, etc. [more]

MIKROVOLUNTEERING:

Simple e-volunteering tasks that be done in short period of time – from 15 minutes to 3 hours.

SOCIAL MAPPING:

Thanks to free platforms and apps, in many countries mapping is become more and more popular. Mapping means creating maps showing some issue. It can be useful for, e.g.

– local community – when you point places worth visit,

– local government – when show places that need renovation,

– or excluded groups – when you create a map of places accessible and non-accessible for the disabled. [more]

HELP AND SELF-HELP GROUPS:

That type of e-volunteering covers all initiatives aimed at supporting others via the Internet. Such projects can be grassroots implemented by an informal group of people focused on specific issue, but they can also be planned and organized by professional organizations. The support is often given through Internet forums, discussion groups, virtual rooms, e-mails, etc. [more]

Mostly, e-volunteering projects are a mix of few types mentioned above. For example, there are self help gourps, that besides of supporting others via the internet forum, gather knowledge on some issue and collect money via the Internet.

But that catalog of types of e-volunteering is still open! Maybe you know a project, that doesn’t fit into none of category mentioned above? If so, share that info with us – who knows, maybe you’ve just disocvered new type of e-volunteering! :)