1.
Designing Successful Heritage
Crowdsourcing Projects
Mia Ridge, @mia_out
Digital Curator, British Library
Friedrich-Meinecke-Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, December 2015

2.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/statensarkiver/8975684669
Overview
Definitions
Key examples
Designing successful heritage
crowdsourcing projects

3.
About me

4.
http://museumgam.es

5.
'Collecting experiences of WWI'

6.
‘Collaborative Collections’

7.
Definitions

8.
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'

9.
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'

10.
Heritage crowdsourcing as volunteering
https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/4659373140

11.
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.

12.
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.

13.
Basically...
Transforming input content into output content
...via a powerful purpose and / or
enjoyable tasks that people want to help you
with

14.
Why crowdsourcing in GLAMs?

15.
Digitisation backlog: collections are
big, resources are small
https://www.flickr.com/photos/statensarkiver/8975684427

16.
Fix the 'semantic gap', enhance
discoverability

17.
Access external specialist expertise
https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/6990188224/

18.
Create meaningful experiences
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmediamuseum/8416664366/

19.
Defining success

20.
Defining success: productivity
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/16189299

21.
Defining success: reach
http://community.zooniverse.org/

22.
Defining success: engagement
http://herbariaunited.org/atHome/

23.
Key examples

24.
reCAPTCHA

25.
NLA Trove: OCR correction
http://trove.nla.gov.au/

26.
179 million lines of text corrected

27.
NYPL 'What's on the Menu?'

28.
Transcribe Bentham

29.
Task complexity vs audience size
https://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2162650585

30.
Old Weather
http://oldweather.org/

31.
Participant discussion
http://oldweather.org/

32.
British Library: Georeferencer
http://www.bl.uk/maps/

33.
Smithsonian 'mini projects'

34.
The power of niche projects

35.
Your Paintings Tagger

36.
PCF Image Recognition

37.
http://freebmd.org.uk/
'Grassroots' projects

38.
Designing successful crowdsourcing
projects

39.
Designing successful crowdsourcing projects
• Project design
• User experience (interface, interaction) design
– Onboarding, first task
– Sustained participation despite changes in
motivation over time

40.
Understanding participants

41.
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'

42.
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

43.
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, Australia
https://secure.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryqueensland/3198305152/

44.
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)

45.
UX design for
successful
crowdsourcing
projects

46.
Basically...
Transforming input content into output content
...via a powerful purpose and / or
enjoyable tasks that people want to help you
with

47.
Window shopping
https://www.flickr.com/photos/twm_news/6841092248

48.
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!'

49.
Rewards reinforce motivation

50.
Design for casual and super-contributors
http://blog.oldweather.org

51.
Simple tasks as stepping stones
http://www.fossilfinder.org/

52.
Scaffold tasks, minimise distractions
NYPL 'What's on the Menu?'

53.
Onboarding and casual games

54.
Onboarding and casual games
Tutorials built into the interface
Feedback on progress towards goals
Skills matched to challenge
Low risk of failure

55.
Provide social proof; anticipate anxiety
It’s easy! No registration required!
So far: 1,331,935 dishes transcribed from 17,545 menus

56.
Design for on-going participation

57.
Nurture curiosity
'Discuss this personnel record'
http://www.measuringtheanzacs.org

58.
Task ecosystems
http://buildinginspector.nypl.org/

59.
Up the challenge: mobiles and tablets
http://familysearch.org/

60.
Project design

61.
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

62.
Don't forget to invite people

63.
#party host
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/5786204856
Crowdsourcing as hosting a party

64.
‘no plan survives contact with the crowd’
With apologies to Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

65.
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

66.
Balancing acts

67.
Planning a graceful exit
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fylkesarkiv/4545543824

68.
Thank you!
Questions?
Mia Ridge @mia_out
Digital Curator, British Library
Friedrich-Meinecke-Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, December 2015