Open NYU: Crowdsourcing Employees of New York University's Department of Public Safety

The Governance Lab (GovLab) is a research, training, and experimentation laboratory that focuses on improving peoples lives by addressing real world challenges through institutional redesign. Through the OPEN NYU project, the Capstone team worked with GovLab, and stakeholders across the University to design and test different processes and technological platforms as a method of engaging the NYU community in promoting better governance decisions. Launching a pilot project, the Capstone team focused on engaging employees from the Department of Public Safety (DPS) as an opportunity to work with staff members that interface with the entire NYU community. The team conducted extensive interviews to identify specific challenges faced by DPS, designing and implementing an ideas-based competition to crowdsource creative solutions from DPS officers to then be evaluated by DPS managers and outside experts, exploring whether tapping into employee experience yields more effective and legitimate solutions to governance challenges.