New technologies allow people from all around the world to contribute their information, opinions, and expertise to collaborative efforts.
In some cases, systems require material to be entered in structured ways in order to maintain quality control. In other cases there are more free ranging approaches, in which free text folksonomies are included ... for example, tools like LibraryThing and GoodReads encourage readers to upload personal opinions about books.
One interesting method of gathering information is to utilize crowdsourcing ... the inclusion of descriptive information by many distributed people. In some cases the project may restrict input to experts, but in other cases any person can add information. Examples of crowdsourcing include Wikipedia, IMDB, and those listed on the following crowdsourcing page.
SHARING OPEN DATA: DataBridge is intended to expand the life cycle of dark data, allowing researchers from around the country to submit their data after publishing their findings. The platform will serve as an archive for data sets and metadata, grouping them into clusters of information to make relevant data easier to find.
For demonstrating problems with sharing undocumented data, see the following data problem video.
For additional information see Handling Information and Data.