1.
Choosy crowds and the machine age:
challenges for the future of humanities
crowdsourcing
Citizen Humanities Comes of Age: Crowdsourcing
for the Humanities in the 21st Century
King’s College London, September 2015
Mia Ridge, Open University
@mia_out http://miaridge.com

2.
Crowdsourcing in cultural heritage is...
...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.

3.
Motivations as guidance
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)
State Library of New South Wales
https://www.flickr.com/photos/29454428@N08/2880982738

4.
Mobiles and tablets
http://familysearch.org/

5.
The growth of platforms

6.
Technology isn't enough
https://www.flickr.com/photos/missouristatearchives/20329587543/

7.
Compete or collaborate?
http://www.hover.com/blog/what-ever-happened-to-webrings/

8.
#party host
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/5786204856
Choosy crowds

9.
Window shopping
https://www.flickr.com/photos/twm_news/6841092248

10.
Balancing acts

11.
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

12.
Planning a graceful exit
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fylkesarkiv/4545543824

13.
Task ecosystems
http://buildinginspector.nypl.org/

14.
Simple tasks as stepping stones
http://www.fossilfinder.org/

15.
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/21/408234543/will-your-job-be-done-by-a-machine
Machine learning

16.
Handwritten text recognition

17.
Transcribing and tagging audio

18.
Robot journalists
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/05/20/406484294/an-npr-reporter-raced-a-machine-to-write-a-news-story-who-won

19.
Flickr's image tagging

20.
The end of stepping stone tasks?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/

21.
Robots can get it wrong

22.
We won't run out of material soon
https://www.flickr.com/photos/statensarkiver/8975684427

23.
We can go further together

24.
PCF Image Recognition

25.
Help create niche projects

26.
Better task validation

27.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalarchives/4128460122
Personalised feedback

28.
New tasks
http://crowdsourced.micropasts.org/project/photomaskingLunula

29.
Better heuristics
https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14780537354/

30.
Keep learning, keep sharing!
Citizen Humanities Comes of Age: Crowdsourcing
for the Humanities in the 21st Century
King’s College London, September 2015
Mia Ridge, Open University
@mia_out http://miaridge.com