WIREDGOV

South London’s Lambeth College has become the first further education college in England to have utilised a new technique to gather ideas from its stakeholders employing the ‘wisdom of crowds’ process.

This highly  innovative project, supported by LSIS used this ‘crowdsourcing model’ to collect the thoughts, ideas and opinions to the question ‘Over the next five years, what do you think Lambeth College can do to help people get into work?’

The new web-based technology enabled the institution to ‘virtually brainstorm’, collecting & analysing the ideas provided, with assistance from Shoshin Limited and Fountain Park, specialists in the design of ‘wisdom of crowds’ applications.

Following in the footsteps of reputable organisations such as UK Government Foresight, the Government of Singapore, British Telecom, CERN, and the Centre for European Studies this leading-edge method of collating data provides managers a better understanding of the thoughts of staff and stakeholders in order to develop strategy and access to a greater diversity of audience.

Around 200 people ranging from private and public sector employers, college staff and students, governors and members of the wider community contributed over 500 ideas. These ideas have been used to develop a variety of briefing papers to formulate strategy.

Lambeth College plan to develop the ‘wisdom of crowds’ method for future research into employability and stakeholder collaboration.

This project was funded by LSIS who were keen to explore how ‘wisdom of crowds’ could be used by FE and skills providers to improve their community and employer responsiveness and therefore the quality of learner outcomes over the next five years.

Further information on how crowd sourcing approaches helped Lambeth College and could benefit others in the FE sector are detailed in this case study.