Whether it is crowdsourcing, prediction markets, inducement prize problem-solving contests, or citizen science, there exist many methods that attempt to find or improve solutions to problems by utilizing the contributions of many diverse individuals. In other words, they leverage the “wisdom of the crowd” to address the growing challenges we face as a society. These techniques underlie the study of collective intelligence, which combines diverse ideas, information, procedures, and technologies to produce better predictions, strategies, and outcomes.

The notion of collective intelligence and crowdsourcing is not new. It has been used in various forms for centuries. Historical examples range from the use of juries instead of individuals to determine guilt or innocence; to the experiment of Sir Frances Galton in 1906 asking 787 villagers to guess the weight of an ox; to the Red Balloon Challenge hosted by DARPA in 2009, which awarded a prize to anyone that could locate 10 red weather balloons hidden in plain sight across the United States.

As the problems that we face grow in complexity and dimensionality, collective intelligence and crowdsourcing continue to increase in importance. Because of vast improvements in the speed and reach of communications and data flow, almost anyone can now act as a consultant on a problem by providing their own individual expertise and information. Some areas where collective intelligence methods have been used include economics, biology, medicine, sports, law, communications, political science, and organizational behavior, to name a few. We find that is already exists in nature when we consider flocks of birds, schools of fish, and ant colonies.

As analytics practitioners, we face some basic questions: “How do we collect this information?”; “How do we know that it is accurate?”; and then “How do we best use it to solve problems?”

In this INFORMS Editor’s Cut volume on "Wisdom of the Crowd: Crowdsourcing Analytics," we answer these questions by presenting several relevant journal papers, industry articles, podcasts, and videos. The volume provides researchers, industry professionals, and curious users an introduction to how crowdsourcing and collective intelligence work with big data and analytics to produce cutting-edge research, discoveries, and solutions to real-world problems. It highlights many applications, methods, and examples to illustrate the benefits of collective intelligence and provides a foundational understanding of the subject.

Whether you are an established expert in the field, or just a curious novice wanting to learn more about this exciting topic, we hope that you find our selections relevant and useful.

Finally, we invite everyone to become contributors to this effort. Throughout this volume, you will notice the ways that crowdsourcing and collective intelligence impact how decision makers develop ideas to solve problems both in the present and to anticipate solutions to the problems that we might face in the future. As you consider your own diverse experiences and areas of expertise, send us the items that you think should have been included in this collection (and let us know which ones should not have been). By all of us working together, we believe that is how we can create the best Editor’s Cut volume possible!

The editors would like to thank the University of Michigan students enrolled in Complex Systems 493: Collective Intelligence for their crowdsourced contributions to this volume.