Purpose Through the lens of self-directed theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate if social technologies such as YouTube will be viable to disseminate educational instructions and in the process empowering learners to take charge of their learning. Design/methodology/approach A total of 150 educational videos on YouTube were selected and 29,386 comments extracted using the authors’ customized extraction software application. Sentiment and qualitative content analyses were performed. Findings Results indicate that YouTube can play important roles in facilitating online self-directed learning (SDL) as the findings uncovered a variety of learning and social affordances of YouTube. However, caution should be exercised as high views and well-commented videos might not imply quality and credibility. This study concludes that YouTube generally provides a conducive a learning environment that affords learners the resources to meet their SDL objectives. Research limitations/implications To the best of knowledge, this is the first study that investigates SDL in social media by combining both qualitative content and sentiment analyses. The study shows that such a hybrid approach of combining two diverse analytical techniques provides an innovative means to make sense of comments expressed in social media. Practical implications The results will help educational institutions and policy-makers to craft better programs for public education and create policies to help self-directed learners in evaluating online video resources. Originality/value Despite a wealth of literature on the use of technologies to support learning, the majority of work done to date has dealt in the classroom context. Studies on SDL using educational content on YouTube are limited. Hence, this research contributes by providing insights on how educational institutions can move toward the direction of building collaborative digital learning platforms with relevant educational instruction and resources to enable users to participate in lifelong self-learning and education.

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The increased use of crowdsourcing to support smart city initiatives has been reported in the literature. However, a gap remains in understanding the needs motivating crowdsourcing participation in smart city projects. Integrating perspectives from self-determination theory and public service motivation, this study investigates the motives driving the use of a mobile crowdsourcing platform prototype known as My Smart Mobile City app (i.e., MSMC) that aims to help smart cities manage public engagement with their residents. Data was collected from 100 participants. Factor analysis was conducted and results indicate that the motives driving the use of MSMC fell into three categories: affective, norm-based and rational. Results and implications of our work are discussed.

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