What is ECDC?
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is an agency of the European Union designed to strengthen Europe’s defences against infectious diseases.
Find out more about ECDC here.
What is the goal of the ECDC Crowd?
The ECDC Crowd aims at creating a community with a common interest in public health and infectious disease epidemiology, prevention and control. We believe that such a community can play an important role in supporting decision-making in situations where speed is important, for example during infectious disease emergencies.
During the pilot phase we will focus on micro-tasks related with identifying and selecting information of relevance to infectious diseases. We aim at demonstrating two things in particular: 1) that it is possible to create and maintain a Crowd and 2) that tasks can indeed be completed much faster and with high accuracy by distributing them across a larger group of people.
What types of tasks are available on the ECDC Crowd during the pilot?
The ECDC Crowd offers a variety of tasks related to evidence synthesis and review in public health, with a particular focus on literature/scoping and systematic reviews during the pilot phase. These tasks include data selection, study identification, text annotation, study classification, and screening of titles and abstracts.
Each task is accompanied by a brief training module to ensure participants are well-guided through the process.
What happens after the pilot phase?
Following pilot phase, which evaluates the ECDC Crowd’s technical, operational, and managerial aspects, the next step will involve integrating human insights with advanced AI technologies, such as text mining and machine learning. Additionally, the post-pilot phase will explore various other applications of crowdsourcing to further enhance public health and infectious disease epidemiology, prevention and control.
Who can join the ECDC Crowd?
The ECDC Crowd is open to anyone, regardless of their level of expertise in infectious diseases. We value inclusivity and welcome contributions from a wide range of participants. Every contribution is valuable, even if you can only dedicate a few minutes per day. The tasks are designed to be quick and easy to understand.
What are the benefits of participating in the ECDC Crowd?
By joining the ECDC Crowd enables you to contribute significantly to essential public health research, particularly in the rapidly evolving domain of infectious diseases. Your involvement supports critical evidence synthesis and review, helping researchers quickly find the information they need. As a participant, you become part of a collaborative community working towards a shared goal, gaining access to a diverse range of knowledge and perspectives. Whether you can contribute a little or a lot of time, your input is valuable and makes a real impact in advancing public health.
How do I sign in?
It‘s quick and easy to get started. When you sign up for the first time, please note that you will get a verification code on your email. If you don‘t receive it, check your spam folder. For future sign-in, you use the email and password you registered with. If you‘re also a user of other ECDC services, your usual ECDC credentials are valid here. For further assistance, please contact our support team at helpdesk@ecdc.europa.eu.
Can I feedback my thoughts to the ECDC Crowd team?
Certainly! We welcome your thoughts on the ECDC Crowd. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at crowd@ecdc.europa.eu.
