Designing Successful Heritage Crowdsourcing Projects

Designing Successful Heritage Crowdsourcing Projects

Mia Ridge, @mia_outDigital Curator, British Library

Friedrich-Meinecke-Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, December 2015

https://www.flickr.com/photos/statensarkiver/8975684669

Overview

DefinitionsKey examplesDesigning successful heritage crowdsourcing projects

About me

http://museumgam.es

'Collecting experiences of WWI'

‘Collaborative Collections’

Definitions

What is crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing (Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson, Wired, 2006): 'taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call'

What is crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing (Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson, Wired, 2006): 'taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call'

Or, as Clay Shirky's cognitive surplus, 'the spare processing power of millions of human brains'

Heritage crowdsourcing as volunteering

https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/4659373140

Crowdsourcing in cultural heritage

Asking the public to help with tasks that contribute to a shared, significant goal or research interest related to cultural heritage collections or knowledge.

Crowdsourcing in cultural heritage

Asking the public to help with tasks that contribute to a shared, significant goal or research interest related to cultural heritage collections or knowledge.

The activities and/or goals should be inherently rewarding.

Basically...

Transforming input content into output content ...via a powerful purpose and / or enjoyable tasks that people want to help you

with

Why crowdsourcing in GLAMs?

Digitisation backlog: collections are big, resources are small

https://www.flickr.com/photos/statensarkiver/8975684427

Fix the 'semantic gap', enhance discoverability

Access external specialist expertise

https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/6990188224/

Create meaningful experiences

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmediamuseum/8416664366/

Defining success

Defining success: productivity

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/16189299

Defining success: reach

http://community.zooniverse.org/

Defining success: engagement

http://herbariaunited.org/atHome/

Key examples

reCAPTCHA

NLA Trove: OCR correction

http://trove.nla.gov.au/

179 million lines of text corrected

NYPL 'What's on the Menu?'

Transcribe Bentham

Task complexity vs audience size

https://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2162650585

Old Weather

http://oldweather.org/

Participant discussion

http://oldweather.org/

British Library: Georeferencer

http://www.bl.uk/maps/

Smithsonian 'mini projects'

The power of niche projects

Your Paintings Tagger

PCF Image Recognition

http://freebmd.org.uk/

'Grassroots' projects

Designing successful crowdsourcing projects

Designing successful crowdsourcing projects

• Project design

• User experience (interface, interaction) design– Onboarding, first task– Sustained participation despite changes in

motivation over time

Understanding participants

Who participates in crowdsourcing?

• People who are passionate about your subject / people who like doing the task you're offering

• People who can't volunteer in regular hours or at your venues

• Super-volunteers and passers-by• Amateurs, professionals, 'pro-ams'

Motivations for participation

• Altruistic– helping to provide an accurate record of local

history• Intrinsic– reading 18thC handwriting is an enjoyable puzzle

or they're interested in the subject• Extrinsic– an academic collecting a quote from a primary

source

Intrinsic motivations for participation

• fun• the pleasure in doing

hobbies• the enjoyment in learning• mastering new skills,

practicing existing skills• recognition• community• passion for the subject

State Library of Queensland, Australiahttps://secure.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryqueensland/3198305152/

Motivations as design guide

People crave:• satisfying work to do• the experience of being

good at something• time spent with people

we like• the chance to be a part

of something bigger(Jane McGonigal, 2009)

UX design forsuccessful crowdsourcing projects

Basically...

Transforming input content into output content ...via a powerful purpose and / or enjoyable tasks that people want to help you

with

Window shopping

https://www.flickr.com/photos/twm_news/6841092248

Link text to motivations

'With a few keystrokes, you could bring a family together'

'We know the names of these children; can you help us tell their stories?'

'Kill Time. Make History.'

'Historians need your help!'

Rewards reinforce motivation

Design for casual and super-contributors

http://blog.oldweather.org

Simple tasks as stepping stones

http://www.fossilfinder.org/

Scaffold tasks, minimise distractions

NYPL 'What's on the Menu?'

Onboarding and casual games

Onboarding and casual games

Tutorials built into the interfaceFeedback on progress towards goalsSkills matched to challengeLow risk of failure

Provide social proof; anticipate anxiety

It’s easy! No registration required!So far: 1,331,935 dishes transcribed from 17,545 menus

Design for on-going participation

Nurture curiosity

'Discuss this personnel record'

http://www.measuringtheanzacs.org

Task ecosystems

http://buildinginspector.nypl.org/

Up the challenge: mobiles and tablets

http://familysearch.org/

Project design

Project design

• Plan to store and process results from crowdsourcing

• Plan to measure success• Plan to contribute to your engagement

strategy and digitisation goals

• Understand the appetite for risk• Reality check your plans

Don't forget to invite people

#party host

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/5786204856

Crowdsourcing as hosting a party

‘no plan survives contact with the crowd’

With apologies to Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Going off-piste

'...None of the above is ready to send to you as I have more research to do'

https://www.flickr.com/photos/swedish_heritage_board/10207262464

Balancing acts

https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/3072281873

Planning a graceful exithttps://www.flickr.com/photos/fylkesarkiv/4545543824

Thank you!Questions?

Mia Ridge @mia_outDigital Curator, British Library

Friedrich-Meinecke-Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, December 2015