Crowdsource Ideas with New Competition Platform

Federal agencies now have the ability to create a challenge competition website that accepts submissions and allows public voting with a new, no-cost tool.

The Challenge.gov team unveiled and demonstrated the capabilities of GSA’s new crowdsourcing and prize competition platform, Challenge.sites.usa.gov on a DigitalGov University webinar. The platform is now available for any federal employee to log in and explore its functionality (just be careful not to publish anything not intended to be public).

More than twenty people have already registered to use it, one competition is live and a couple more will launch within the month. The tool is built to be a seamless experience for users who start on challenge.gov and then find themselves in this interactive component. Challenge.gov also lists competitions that are hosted on specialized platforms and on agency sites, in addition to the “sites” platform.

This ideation crowdsourcing tool comes packed with features to help federal agencies create, launch, and manage public prize competitions, including the following nine functions:

(Click on the hyperlink to be taken directly to that discussion point in the webinar recording, or jump to the noted time in the embedded video below)

• Post your challenge title, tagline, details, and rules (2:02)

  With a short title (3-6 words, acronyms not recommended), a one- or two-sentence tagline, and a more in-depth description for the details section, you’re ready to get started.

• Add media to the challenge page (3:05)

  Insert photos, logos, or other visual media with the “Add media” button. Embed videos simply by pasting a url into the text body.

• Note the terms and conditions of submissions and how to enter(6:20)

  All entrants will have to accept the terms and conditions included in this section before they can submit an entry.

• Describe prizes offered and list post-challenge winners (7:02)

  The platform offers the option to list multiple prizes, both monetary or non-monetary. After the challenge is over, return to this section to add in the respective winners.

• List judging criteria and judges for your competition (8:20)

  Make sure the participants know how they’ll be scored by inputting the judging criteria and the weight of each criterion in the final scoring. Also, list your judges in this section.

• Enter the appropriate dates for the competition (10:17)

  The easy calendar format allows you to display dates and times for opening and closing of the submission period, judging, public voting, and winners announcements.

• Accept submissions from entrants (25:05)

  Submissions from the public can include media and/or attachments, and they will be sent directly to the email address of the person who created the challenge.

• Create a submission gallery the public can vote on (27:25)

  Choose which submissions you’d like to show publicly, if any, and allow the public to vote on them using a 5-star rating method.

• Interact with solvers using the discussion tool (14:00)

  The discussion section allows the solvers to ask questions and interact with other competitors or with the challenge manager.

Challenge.sites.usa.gov was built with the shared sites.usa.gov service, which aims to offer agencies a system to provide content without having to build a site from scratch.

For more information, contact the team at challenge@gsa.gov. Happy crowdsourcing!