The Internet of Things

8Crowdsourcing and Human‐in‐the‐Loop for IoT

Luis‐Daniel Ibáñez Neal Reeves and Elena Simperl

Web and Internet Science Department, University of Southampton, Southampton, Hampshire, UK

8.1 Introduction

Internet of Things (IoT) networks of sensors, mobile phones, and other smart devices are providing researchers, practitioners, and end users with an unprecedented amount of data to enable new services, inform decisions, and create added value. As mentioned in Chapter 1, the number of smart phone users topped three billion by the end of 2018. Other wearable devices such as watches, eyewear, and garments have become increasingly ubiquitous, with a projected 245 million units expected to be sold in 2019 alone [1]. In the public sector, smart cities leverage IoT technologies to design better policies, create efficiencies, and manage growth sustainably [2]. Urban areas around the world have made substantial investments to deploy “smart connections” for everything from buses to street lights to buildings, which fuel data analytics.

While developers have focused on improving sensor accuracy and devising advanced methods to store, manage, and analyze IoT data, public authorities soon realized that technology is just one, albeit a crucial component, of their smart city strategy, which could help them achieve their wider development goals and be more responsive toward residents' needs [3]. A smart city is hence commonly understood as a people‐centric city, delivering services that matter ...