Crowd-sourcing the COVID data: Advantages and pitfalls

Abstract

Web based surveys have gained importance in last 20 years due to ease of internet access. It has proven to be a boon in terms of minimized contacts and still be able to churn out statistically valid results and on the other hand, it has faced a lot of criticism due to lack of repeatability and other scientific validity pillars. To increase the validity of such studies, a central database should be maintained and the questionnaires should be short and to the point and should take into considerations the diversity in culture and languages.

Keywords

• covid pandemic
• crowd sourcing
• reliability
• web surveys