Rose Holley, Special Collections Curator at UNSW Canberra discusses the findings of her research into crowdsourcing based curation. Using the digitised historic Australian Newspapers as an example, she looks at how the functionality and interface was developed in close relationship with the users, and how this led on to text correction of newspaper articles. It is nearly ten years since this pioneering project began and the motivations and achievements of the 50,000 volunteers are examined over this time. She questions how successfully the goal of improving text quality and therefore search has been achieved. She proposes that if a similar project was begun now then artificial intelligence software would be used such as OverProof post OCR correction tool to improve the quality of the text. OverProof has been trained on the manual corrections of the Australian newspaper corpus and trials demonstrate it is able to dramatically improve the quality of the corpus. Volunteer text correction could still continue afterwards for difficult text but the software would do the main donkey work, allowing users to have a better quality search.
Fifth British Library Labs (BL Labs) Symposium, Monday October 30, 2017.
10:05 – 11:00 Keynote ‘Open, Digital, Inclusive: Unleashing Knowledge’
Josie Fraser, Senior Technology Adviser on the National Technology Team, based in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in the UK Government.
Josie will discuss the impact the open knowledge movement has had on education and learning. Looking at the powerful role that Wikimedia UK and Wikimedians have played in bringing UK cultural institutions and their digital collections to new and wider audiences, the talk will also explore how open knowledge partnerships are driving diversity and better representation for all online. She will invite the audience to join her in exploring ideas and opportunities for the future.
The Digital Research Suite at the British Library - The next step for BL Labslabsbl
Fifth British Library Labs (BL Labs) Symposium, Monday October 30, 2017.
12:05 – 12:15 The Digital Research Suite at the British Library - The next step for BL Labs
Dr Adam Farquhar
Adam will give a brief overview of the next stage of the Labs project.
Fifth British Library Labs (BL Labs) Symposium, Monday October 30, 2017.
Artistic Award
Presented by Jamie Andrews, Head of Culture and Learning at the British Library
This Award recognises an artistic or creative endeavour that has used the Library’s digital content to inspire, amaze and provoke.
Amelie Roper manages research development and the document lists 10 potential research projects involving digital libraries and computational analysis tools, including constructing a suicide corpus from 19th century newspapers, comparing world music corpora, and developing search and mining tools for language archives.
Building Better GLAM Labs - Keynote Presentation at Simon Fraser Universitylabsbl
The document describes the British Library Labs, a department within the British Library focused on enabling use of the British Library's digital collections through experimentation and innovation. It provides details on the Labs' activities, including supporting digital scholars, developing digital research methods, and growing an international community of over 50 GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) Labs. Challenges addressed include exploring large digital collections at scale, discovering new ways to access and analyze cultural heritage data, and helping navigate users through the Library's resources and processes.
The document discusses the similarities between libraries and hackerspaces/hackers in their shared values of open access to information, freedom, sharing, and collaboration. It provides examples of how libraries and hackerspaces can work together through initiatives like a LibraryBox (a version of PirateBox that provides open access to digital content), a Twitter-controlled Christmas tree light display, and a mobile library FabLab in the Netherlands. The role of libraries is shifting from just lending to becoming a platform that facilitates knowledge creation and community learning through connections and partnerships.
Digital Engagement at the Nordiska museetKajsa Hartig
Presentation given at seminar: Experiencing the Digital World: The Cultural Value of Digital Engagement with Heritage, a project run by University of Leeds.
The document discusses digital collections at the British Library. It provides information on accessing and working with the Library's digital content, including over 720 digital collections that are either openly licensed and available online or available onsite. It also discusses challenges of access, engagement with researchers, the story behind digitization of collections, and support available through the British Library Labs for working with digital collections.
Fifth British Library Labs (BL Labs) Symposium, Monday October 30, 2017.
10:05 – 11:00 Keynote ‘Open, Digital, Inclusive: Unleashing Knowledge’
Josie Fraser, Senior Technology Adviser on the National Technology Team, based in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in the UK Government.
Josie will discuss the impact the open knowledge movement has had on education and learning. Looking at the powerful role that Wikimedia UK and Wikimedians have played in bringing UK cultural institutions and their digital collections to new and wider audiences, the talk will also explore how open knowledge partnerships are driving diversity and better representation for all online. She will invite the audience to join her in exploring ideas and opportunities for the future.
The Digital Research Suite at the British Library - The next step for BL Labslabsbl
Fifth British Library Labs (BL Labs) Symposium, Monday October 30, 2017.
12:05 – 12:15 The Digital Research Suite at the British Library - The next step for BL Labs
Dr Adam Farquhar
Adam will give a brief overview of the next stage of the Labs project.
Fifth British Library Labs (BL Labs) Symposium, Monday October 30, 2017.
Artistic Award
Presented by Jamie Andrews, Head of Culture and Learning at the British Library
This Award recognises an artistic or creative endeavour that has used the Library’s digital content to inspire, amaze and provoke.
Amelie Roper manages research development and the document lists 10 potential research projects involving digital libraries and computational analysis tools, including constructing a suicide corpus from 19th century newspapers, comparing world music corpora, and developing search and mining tools for language archives.
Building Better GLAM Labs - Keynote Presentation at Simon Fraser Universitylabsbl
The document describes the British Library Labs, a department within the British Library focused on enabling use of the British Library's digital collections through experimentation and innovation. It provides details on the Labs' activities, including supporting digital scholars, developing digital research methods, and growing an international community of over 50 GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) Labs. Challenges addressed include exploring large digital collections at scale, discovering new ways to access and analyze cultural heritage data, and helping navigate users through the Library's resources and processes.
The document discusses the similarities between libraries and hackerspaces/hackers in their shared values of open access to information, freedom, sharing, and collaboration. It provides examples of how libraries and hackerspaces can work together through initiatives like a LibraryBox (a version of PirateBox that provides open access to digital content), a Twitter-controlled Christmas tree light display, and a mobile library FabLab in the Netherlands. The role of libraries is shifting from just lending to becoming a platform that facilitates knowledge creation and community learning through connections and partnerships.
Digital Engagement at the Nordiska museetKajsa Hartig
Presentation given at seminar: Experiencing the Digital World: The Cultural Value of Digital Engagement with Heritage, a project run by University of Leeds.
The document discusses digital collections at the British Library. It provides information on accessing and working with the Library's digital content, including over 720 digital collections that are either openly licensed and available online or available onsite. It also discusses challenges of access, engagement with researchers, the story behind digitization of collections, and support available through the British Library Labs for working with digital collections.
Wikipedia at the Royal Society: The Good, the Bad and the UglyDuncan Hull
Wikipedia has a troubled relationship with scientists and their science. Many scientists are wary of editing Wikipedia and reluctant to contribute their knowledge to it, despite its global reach. Consequently, Wikipedia's coverage of Science is very variable with many notable scientists work either completely absent or poorly described.
There are several WikiProjects that are tackling these problems across Science, including in Computational Biology, Medicine, Cell Biology, Physiology and Women Scientists.
This talk will describe how the WikiProject Royal Society has addressed these issues, through its Wikipedian in Residence scheme. We will examine the outcomes of the project as well as the challenges that remain for this ongoing collaboration between the Royal Society and Wikimedia UK.
We will discuss the good, bad and "ugly" aspects of scientists Wiki-biographies (quick biographies in Wikipedia) and draw conclusions about improving coverage of Scientists, and their Science in Wikipedia using the resources of a learned academic society.
Speaker biography: Dr. Duncan Hull is a lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester who started editing Wikipedia in 2004. He helped setup the Wikipedian in Residence scheme at the Royal Society in 2012.
The document outlines lessons learned from community museum projects. It emphasizes the importance of understanding community needs and existing local resources. Partnerships across different organizations can help museums be sustainable and give communities ownership. Projects should be realistic in scope and adapt flexibly based on partner priorities and changing circumstances. The takeaway is to build on what already exists, work collaboratively, and regularly review approaches to maintain relevance.
Connected Learning and FryskLab at Nationaal Bibliotheekcongres 2014Fers
Joint presentation by Ake Nygren and Jeroen de Boer on connected learning, Mozilla Webmaker, FryskLab, libraries and maker culture at Nationaal Bibliotheekcongres, December 10 2014
Building Better GLAM Labs - Opening talk at Museum Big Data Conference - UCL ...labsbl
The document outlines Mahendra Mahey's presentation on exploring the use of big data in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) digital labs. Some key points include:
- Mahendra will give a talk on using big data in GLAM digital labs at the Qatar National Library on April 30, 2019.
- BL Labs at the British Library works with researchers, artists, and others to experiment with digitized and born digital collections.
- Engagement with potential users is important for GLAM institutions to explore uses of their digital content and data.
Makerspaces are areas in libraries where people can meet and use tools like 3D printers to create and imagine. They allow teenagers especially to explore their creativity. Libraries are incorporating makerspaces to stay current with changing technology and engage users. Makerspaces offer activities like circuitry, Lego building, and access to free online resources to facilitate projects. Grants and fundraising can help libraries start their own makerspaces.
Lost at Sea of Wikipedia: how cultural organisations navigate the impact of w...Museums Computer Group
Daria Cybulska – Head of Programmes (Wikimedia UK)
The Wikimedian in Residence programme in the UK is about five years old. In 2017 they conducted research into the kinds of impact that can be expected from setting up residencies and how to maximise that impact over the short and long term.
This session will explore how to collaborate with open knowledge via Wikimedia projects, and what sort of impact is possible after running a Wikimedian in Residence project. The dimensions of impact are increased reach of collections, change of internal and external perspective on the museum, and scalability across the cultural sector.
Crowdsourcing and social engagement: potential, power and freedom for librari...Rose Holley
Rose Holley gave a keynote presentation on the potential of crowdsourcing for libraries. She discussed how crowdsourcing utilizes volunteers to achieve goals that libraries lack resources for. Crowdsourcing projects have achieved significant results by harnessing large numbers of volunteers. Common factors in successful crowdsourcing include clear goals, showing progress, and acknowledging volunteer contributions. Libraries have opportunities to leverage crowdsourcing to improve and add value to their collections by engaging communities.
Trove: Collecting, Sharing and Improving Digital Data: Changing roles of libr...Rose Holley
The document discusses the changing roles of librarians and users in the digital age. It describes how cultural institutions are digitizing collections and engaging users to collaboratively enhance information through features like tagging and correcting text. Initiatives like the National Library of Australia's Australian Newspapers project allow millions of articles to be searched and improved online through crowdsourcing.
Discovering The Value Of Social Networks and Communities of PracticeCollabor8now Ltd
There has been much written about measuring the value of online communities such as Social Networks or Communities of Practice. However, most pundits tend to think of measuring value from a purely financial perspective, i.e. the Return on Investment (ROI). Clearly this is an important factor, but it’s not the only factor that should be considered
Trove: Innovation In Access To Information. June 2010Rose Holley
Presentation given for the Creative Industries Innovation Centre.
Describing why Trove is innovative, and how collaboration has been key to innovation. Collaboration in digitisation, metadata sharing, storage, committment to open standards and interopability has helped create Trove - a single point of access to Australian information.
Trove: A Government 2.0 Showcase August 2010, Australian ParliamentRose Holley
Presentation covers the aspects of Trove which make it a Government 2.0 showcase example. It is a search engine with several social engagement and crowdsourcing features.
This session will explore the scope for transforming collaboration and knowledge-sharing between public sector workers in different organizations. It will take as its starting point the lesson's learnt from the UK's local government community of practice platform, currently the world's largest network for public sector professionals. Moving on to describe the Knowledge Hub, the "next generation" Enterprise Social Software platform, providing many new features, and enabling far better permeability between government communities and external (Web 2.0) social networks and web services. Delegates will gain insights into the contribution that online communities can make in the public sector, and will discuss the barriers to effective collaboration and the best ways to overcome them
Digital Humanities in Practice, DHC 2012Monica Bulger
This paper presents findings of a fieldwork study that explored research practices, challenges, and directions in contemporary digital humanities scholarship. The study was conducted in the period April-October, 2010, as part of two research projects of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Oxford Internet Institute. The studies included observations, focus groups, and in-depth interviews with digital humanities scholars, policymakers, and funders, with a focus on developers and users of digital resources for humanities research. The study involved 92 participants from over 25 institutions in 5 countries.
Presented by: Monica Bulger, Eric T. Meyer, and Sally Wyatt, with Smiljana Antonijevic
This document describes the qualifications and experience of Brian Kelly for a Community Engagement Manager position at an organization focused on open data. It outlines Brian's technical skills and experience with open data, social media management of organizational accounts, strong written and oral communication abilities, experience defining metrics and strategies for community engagement, and proven ability to work with diverse professionals and create impact. Brian has over 15 years of experience advocating for open practices through numerous conference talks, published papers, openly licensed resources, and events promoting openness in areas like education and cultural heritage.
The document discusses various conferences and events focused on technology, design, and social change. It provides details on several major conferences, including TED, PopTech, FITC, IdeaCity, RGD Design Thinkers, Web 2.0 Summit, Ad-Tech, SXSW Interactive, and Mesh. Sponsorship opportunities and contact information are listed for some of the conferences. Background research and considerations for a potential "Betterment Movement Conference" are also discussed, including topics, criteria for judging ideas, and ways to make the conference more effective.
Social Media Tools and Mobile Apps for Research and PublishingCheryl Peltier-Davis
This document provides an overview of a workshop on using social media tools and mobile apps for research and publishing. It discusses various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest as well as file sharing tools like Dropbox, Google Docs and citation managers like Mendeley that can aid at various stages of the research process from developing ideas to collaborating and publishing results. Mobile apps and crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter and Unglue.it that can help with funding and publishing open access research are also covered.
Social media in Libraries: Toolkit for Promotion, Productivity & Reference: a...Cheryl Peltier-Davis
Outline:
• Defining Social Media
• Social Media in Libraries : Benefits & Challenges
• Social Media Toolkit for Libraries: Promotion, Productivity, Reference
• Free Caribbean Reference Resources
This document provides information about Cheryl Ann Peltier-Davis, including where she works as a librarian and her areas of expertise. It also outlines her presentation on social media tools and mobile apps, including definitions of social media, examples of popular social media sites and mobile apps, and the benefits and challenges of using social media in libraries. The presentation covers tools for communication, marketing, professional development, productivity, and reference.
Walking the talk of open research and open innovation in practiceSimon Tanner
Introduce the Department of Digital Humanities & King’s Digital Labs. A personal journey of the research benefits of Open: Access/Data/Research. Structuring open research in Digital Humanities at King’s. Open Innovation and the Digital Humanities in the Arts and Humanities.
Social Media in the ABM (MLA) Sector: opportunities and challengesMia
Lecture on social media and museums, libraries and archives given to the The Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority (ABM-utvikling) in Oslo, December 2009.
A director's brief for my Hyperlinked Library course (LIBR 287) . This brief explains digital content curation via services like Scoop.it and advocates for its implementation in a public library. Digital curation is a natural service in the Library 2.0 world.
Wikipedia at the Royal Society: The Good, the Bad and the UglyDuncan Hull
Wikipedia has a troubled relationship with scientists and their science. Many scientists are wary of editing Wikipedia and reluctant to contribute their knowledge to it, despite its global reach. Consequently, Wikipedia's coverage of Science is very variable with many notable scientists work either completely absent or poorly described.
There are several WikiProjects that are tackling these problems across Science, including in Computational Biology, Medicine, Cell Biology, Physiology and Women Scientists.
This talk will describe how the WikiProject Royal Society has addressed these issues, through its Wikipedian in Residence scheme. We will examine the outcomes of the project as well as the challenges that remain for this ongoing collaboration between the Royal Society and Wikimedia UK.
We will discuss the good, bad and "ugly" aspects of scientists Wiki-biographies (quick biographies in Wikipedia) and draw conclusions about improving coverage of Scientists, and their Science in Wikipedia using the resources of a learned academic society.
Speaker biography: Dr. Duncan Hull is a lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester who started editing Wikipedia in 2004. He helped setup the Wikipedian in Residence scheme at the Royal Society in 2012.
The document outlines lessons learned from community museum projects. It emphasizes the importance of understanding community needs and existing local resources. Partnerships across different organizations can help museums be sustainable and give communities ownership. Projects should be realistic in scope and adapt flexibly based on partner priorities and changing circumstances. The takeaway is to build on what already exists, work collaboratively, and regularly review approaches to maintain relevance.
Connected Learning and FryskLab at Nationaal Bibliotheekcongres 2014Fers
Joint presentation by Ake Nygren and Jeroen de Boer on connected learning, Mozilla Webmaker, FryskLab, libraries and maker culture at Nationaal Bibliotheekcongres, December 10 2014
Building Better GLAM Labs - Opening talk at Museum Big Data Conference - UCL ...labsbl
The document outlines Mahendra Mahey's presentation on exploring the use of big data in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) digital labs. Some key points include:
- Mahendra will give a talk on using big data in GLAM digital labs at the Qatar National Library on April 30, 2019.
- BL Labs at the British Library works with researchers, artists, and others to experiment with digitized and born digital collections.
- Engagement with potential users is important for GLAM institutions to explore uses of their digital content and data.
Makerspaces are areas in libraries where people can meet and use tools like 3D printers to create and imagine. They allow teenagers especially to explore their creativity. Libraries are incorporating makerspaces to stay current with changing technology and engage users. Makerspaces offer activities like circuitry, Lego building, and access to free online resources to facilitate projects. Grants and fundraising can help libraries start their own makerspaces.
Lost at Sea of Wikipedia: how cultural organisations navigate the impact of w...Museums Computer Group
Daria Cybulska – Head of Programmes (Wikimedia UK)
The Wikimedian in Residence programme in the UK is about five years old. In 2017 they conducted research into the kinds of impact that can be expected from setting up residencies and how to maximise that impact over the short and long term.
This session will explore how to collaborate with open knowledge via Wikimedia projects, and what sort of impact is possible after running a Wikimedian in Residence project. The dimensions of impact are increased reach of collections, change of internal and external perspective on the museum, and scalability across the cultural sector.
Crowdsourcing and social engagement: potential, power and freedom for librari...Rose Holley
Rose Holley gave a keynote presentation on the potential of crowdsourcing for libraries. She discussed how crowdsourcing utilizes volunteers to achieve goals that libraries lack resources for. Crowdsourcing projects have achieved significant results by harnessing large numbers of volunteers. Common factors in successful crowdsourcing include clear goals, showing progress, and acknowledging volunteer contributions. Libraries have opportunities to leverage crowdsourcing to improve and add value to their collections by engaging communities.
Trove: Collecting, Sharing and Improving Digital Data: Changing roles of libr...Rose Holley
The document discusses the changing roles of librarians and users in the digital age. It describes how cultural institutions are digitizing collections and engaging users to collaboratively enhance information through features like tagging and correcting text. Initiatives like the National Library of Australia's Australian Newspapers project allow millions of articles to be searched and improved online through crowdsourcing.
Discovering The Value Of Social Networks and Communities of PracticeCollabor8now Ltd
There has been much written about measuring the value of online communities such as Social Networks or Communities of Practice. However, most pundits tend to think of measuring value from a purely financial perspective, i.e. the Return on Investment (ROI). Clearly this is an important factor, but it’s not the only factor that should be considered
Trove: Innovation In Access To Information. June 2010Rose Holley
Presentation given for the Creative Industries Innovation Centre.
Describing why Trove is innovative, and how collaboration has been key to innovation. Collaboration in digitisation, metadata sharing, storage, committment to open standards and interopability has helped create Trove - a single point of access to Australian information.
Trove: A Government 2.0 Showcase August 2010, Australian ParliamentRose Holley
Presentation covers the aspects of Trove which make it a Government 2.0 showcase example. It is a search engine with several social engagement and crowdsourcing features.
This session will explore the scope for transforming collaboration and knowledge-sharing between public sector workers in different organizations. It will take as its starting point the lesson's learnt from the UK's local government community of practice platform, currently the world's largest network for public sector professionals. Moving on to describe the Knowledge Hub, the "next generation" Enterprise Social Software platform, providing many new features, and enabling far better permeability between government communities and external (Web 2.0) social networks and web services. Delegates will gain insights into the contribution that online communities can make in the public sector, and will discuss the barriers to effective collaboration and the best ways to overcome them
Digital Humanities in Practice, DHC 2012Monica Bulger
This paper presents findings of a fieldwork study that explored research practices, challenges, and directions in contemporary digital humanities scholarship. The study was conducted in the period April-October, 2010, as part of two research projects of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Oxford Internet Institute. The studies included observations, focus groups, and in-depth interviews with digital humanities scholars, policymakers, and funders, with a focus on developers and users of digital resources for humanities research. The study involved 92 participants from over 25 institutions in 5 countries.
Presented by: Monica Bulger, Eric T. Meyer, and Sally Wyatt, with Smiljana Antonijevic
This document describes the qualifications and experience of Brian Kelly for a Community Engagement Manager position at an organization focused on open data. It outlines Brian's technical skills and experience with open data, social media management of organizational accounts, strong written and oral communication abilities, experience defining metrics and strategies for community engagement, and proven ability to work with diverse professionals and create impact. Brian has over 15 years of experience advocating for open practices through numerous conference talks, published papers, openly licensed resources, and events promoting openness in areas like education and cultural heritage.
The document discusses various conferences and events focused on technology, design, and social change. It provides details on several major conferences, including TED, PopTech, FITC, IdeaCity, RGD Design Thinkers, Web 2.0 Summit, Ad-Tech, SXSW Interactive, and Mesh. Sponsorship opportunities and contact information are listed for some of the conferences. Background research and considerations for a potential "Betterment Movement Conference" are also discussed, including topics, criteria for judging ideas, and ways to make the conference more effective.
Social Media Tools and Mobile Apps for Research and PublishingCheryl Peltier-Davis
This document provides an overview of a workshop on using social media tools and mobile apps for research and publishing. It discusses various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest as well as file sharing tools like Dropbox, Google Docs and citation managers like Mendeley that can aid at various stages of the research process from developing ideas to collaborating and publishing results. Mobile apps and crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter and Unglue.it that can help with funding and publishing open access research are also covered.
Social media in Libraries: Toolkit for Promotion, Productivity & Reference: a...Cheryl Peltier-Davis
Outline:
• Defining Social Media
• Social Media in Libraries : Benefits & Challenges
• Social Media Toolkit for Libraries: Promotion, Productivity, Reference
• Free Caribbean Reference Resources
This document provides information about Cheryl Ann Peltier-Davis, including where she works as a librarian and her areas of expertise. It also outlines her presentation on social media tools and mobile apps, including definitions of social media, examples of popular social media sites and mobile apps, and the benefits and challenges of using social media in libraries. The presentation covers tools for communication, marketing, professional development, productivity, and reference.
Walking the talk of open research and open innovation in practiceSimon Tanner
Introduce the Department of Digital Humanities & King’s Digital Labs. A personal journey of the research benefits of Open: Access/Data/Research. Structuring open research in Digital Humanities at King’s. Open Innovation and the Digital Humanities in the Arts and Humanities.
Social Media in the ABM (MLA) Sector: opportunities and challengesMia
Lecture on social media and museums, libraries and archives given to the The Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority (ABM-utvikling) in Oslo, December 2009.
A director's brief for my Hyperlinked Library course (LIBR 287) . This brief explains digital content curation via services like Scoop.it and advocates for its implementation in a public library. Digital curation is a natural service in the Library 2.0 world.
Creating an information literate Scotland community of practiceLesley Thomson
This document discusses communities of practice (CoPs) and their role in creating an information literate Scotland. It defines CoPs as groups that share a common interest and learn from one another through regular interaction. The document outlines the purpose and functions of CoPs, including types like helping communities and best practice communities. It also discusses critical success factors for CoPs and ways the Scottish government has supported its information literacy CoP, including through regular emails and polls to engage members.
Online Communities at EuroPCom - Steven Clift KHub.Net and E-Democracy.orgSteven Clift
Online Communities of Practice presentation at EuroPCom - European Conference for Public Communication by Steven Clift. Mixes lessons from UK-based Knowledge Hub http://khub.net with a few relevant experiences via http://E-Democracy.org
Embedding OER and Open practice at UAL a process.arts case study, HEA Annual ...Chris Follows
Embedding OER and Open practice at the University of the Arts London: Chris Follows
Institutional VLE's and OER repositories are rarely built to support social media content communities, as a result many learning and teaching materials are being independently dispersed across the web using more familiar and user friendly 'social media' environments such as wikis, blogs, independent websites, youtube accounts etc, there is currently no middle ground to facilitate OER content communities. How can OER communities adopt social media tools and practices to help improve and encourage better rich media OER practice?
Key challenges for the rich media reuse community are finding or being directed to the most useful and usable open content. Random google searches will sometimes get you what you want but the content will be more than likely high risk and non-reusable in an OER sense. Finding OER rich media reusable 'gems' in this granular landscape is difficult and random standalone pieces of media content are difficult to assess in regards to reuse, remixing this content even more so.
How do we share and collaborate in this space and overcome the obstacles of use and re-use specifically when creating and designing complex rich media learning content?
Chris will draw from four different perspectives of developing media content communities within practice based Art and Design subjects including SCORE research, http://process.arts.ac.uk ,the DIAL project (digital Integration into arts learning) part of the JISC UK Developing digital literacies programme and ALTO (JISC UK OER programme)
Credo reference promoting resources workshop edina slidesAndrew Bevan
This document discusses the importance of promoting online resources and provides guidance on how to do so effectively. It notes that libraries need to promote their subscription resources to justify costs, monitor usage, and help users find useful free resources. Promoting resources is part of the core mission of education and information literacy. Challenges to promoting resources include information overload, competition from other online sources, and decreasing usage trends. The document offers tips for promotion such as using metrics, ensuring accurate metadata, addressing technical issues, search engine optimization, and branding. It emphasizes focusing promotion efforts and adopting a user-centered approach to understand their needs and create meaningful services.
Similar to Crowdsourcing based curation and user engagement in digital library design (20)
The strategic rebuilding and positioning of UNSW Canberra Special Collections...Rose Holley
Overview of a four year program of activities and projects to re-establish and position Special Collections (unique distinctive collections) at UNSW Canberra.
National Archives of Australia. AVAMS Project Achievements August 2014Rose Holley
An overview of the achievements of the AVAMS project at the National Archives of Australia. The project implemented an audiovisual collection management system and an audiovisual digital preservation system using Mediaflex.
Building and Managing Online CommunitiesRose Holley
The document discusses the development and management of the Trove online community platform in Australia. It summarizes how Trove began as the Australian Newspapers digitization project in 2007 and expanded in 2010 to become a single discovery service for libraries, archives and museums. It describes how Trove engaged users by allowing them to correct OCR text, add tags and comments, and contributed their own content like photos and videos. Over time, Trove saw increasing user contributions that helped improve and expand the collection.
Collecting sharing and improving data: changing roles for librarians and user...Rose Holley
- Trove is a digital library platform developed by the National Library of Australia that provides a single search interface to discover digital collections from libraries, archives, and museums.
- It has grown significantly since its launch in 2009 through contributions from over 1,100 organizations and the digitization of over 120 million items.
- Users can tag, comment on, and correct text within the collections, helping to enhance access and discoverability of content through their contributions and interactions.
Resource Sharing in Australia: 'Find' and 'Get' in Trove - Making 'Getting' b...Rose Holley
The document discusses improving access to content ("getting") through the Trove digital library catalogue. It outlines users' expectations of being able to access what they discover online and identifies areas where the current system falls short, such as broken links, lack of options to access physical or digital items, or confusion over how to access items. Suggestions are made to better identify options for accessing digital content, provide enrichment data like reviews and ratings, and implement remote access and document delivery services to fulfill users' expectations of a seamless "get it" experience through Trove.
The Australian Women's Weekly now available in Trove: An overview of the digi...Rose Holley
The document summarizes the digitization process of issues of The Australian Women's Weekly from 1933 to 1982 that were available in the Trove database. Over 400 issues were identified as missing from library collections, with most from 1933 to 1952. Issues also needed replacing due to damage. Efforts were made to locate missing copies, request public help, digitize images, perform OCR and article zoning in India, conduct quality assurance checks, and make the issues freely available online in Trove by topic including content, covers, literature, advertisements, fashion, and knitting patterns.
Ideas for how volunteers at cultural heritage institutions can help, using Tr...Rose Holley
Volunteers at cultural institutions can help contribute to Trove, a digital library tool from the National Library of Australia, in several ways:
1) By correcting text in historical newspaper articles related to topics of interest like particular artists.
2) Adding comments and context to records from their own institution's files to provide more background, like describing the contents of artist ephemera files or providing more location details for images.
3) Creating virtual exhibitions, reading lists, or research folders using Trove's list-making feature to showcase their institution's collections online.
Finding Information Just Got Easier for Historians. Lachlan Macquarie:200 yea...Rose Holley
Presentation by Rose Holley to historians using Lachlan Macquarie as an example search in Trove. For the Royal Australian Historical Society Conference in October 2010.
Social metadata for libraries, archives and museums: Research findings from t...Rose Holley
The document summarizes the findings of the RLG Social Metadata Working Group regarding the use of social metadata in libraries, archives, and museums. The working group reviewed 76 relevant websites, surveyed 42 site managers, and developed 18 recommendations. Key recommendations include having clear objectives for social media use, establishing guidelines for staff and user-generated content, preparing staff, and continuously evaluating usability. The full report provides analysis of survey results, case studies of third-party site use, and additional recommendations.
Developments in Access to Art Information: Trove. Presentation at ARLIS confe...Rose Holley
Presentation at ARLIS conference Darwin, September 2010 by Rose Holley. Demonstrates how Trove aggregrates information for Art resources and is a useful tool for researchers, artists and librarians.
Consultation Forum: Music Australia and Trove Transition, September 2010, IAM...Rose Holley
The document summarizes a consultation forum between Music Australia, Libraries Australia, and the National Library of Australia regarding the transition of Music Australia's discovery services into Trove. Key points discussed include:
- Music Australia will transition to Trove in 2011 to improve efficiency and scalability through a single discovery platform.
- Trove allows for more user participation and community features compared to Music Australia.
- There was a demonstration of music searching in Trove. Music Australia categories will be integrated across different zones in Trove.
- Differences between the current Music Australia and Trove services were discussed, such as searching, results displays, and user engagement features.
- 10 potential concerns with the transition were identified
Trove: More Than a Treasure? ALIA Conference Presentation 2010 Brisbane by Ro...Rose Holley
Describes the innovative development of Trove at the National Library of Australia. Trove is a search engine for Australians about Australians. It contains 90 million items from over 1000 contributing organisations.
Legal Research using digitised historic Australian Newspapers August 2010, by...Rose Holley
Rose Holley, Manager of Trove and Australian Newspapers at the National Library of Australia, provided an overview of the Australian Newspapers service and the digitization process. The presentation highlighted that over 20 million newspaper articles from major titles in each state and territory between 1803-1954 have been digitized and are fully text searchable online. Volunteers have helped improve the digitized text by correcting over 17 million lines. The service has been widely used and praised for making historic Australian newspaper archives accessible online.
Report to CBC on the growth of the Kingston Organic Community Garden, Canberr...Rose Holley
The Kingston Organic Community Garden (KOCG) was opened in October 2008, in Canberra, Australia. It was formed on two disused tennis courts on land owned by the Canberra Baptist Church (CBC). Rose Holley - Committee member (voluntary) reports on progress with building the garden and garden community in the first year.
Stories To Tell: The making of our digital nation. Resource list - Projects y...Rose Holley
This document lists various digital projects where volunteers can help add to collections of historical information and cultural heritage online. It describes how ordinary Australians have helped digitize millions of lines of newspaper text, contributed thousands of photographs, and transcribed records to make them searchable. Examples mentioned include the National Library of Australia sites for correcting newspapers, tagging photos, and commenting on Trove, as well as Wiki sites, archive sites, non-profit sites, and new upcoming projects where volunteers can participate.
Stories to tell: The making of our digital nation. April 2010 Rose Holley
A new type of digital volunteer is quietly adding to the sum of knowledge of our history and heritage on the web. Ordinary Australians have helped correct millions of lines of text in the National Library of Australia's Newspaper Digitisation Program. They have contributed thousands of photographs to the national digital picture collection. The presentation describes these projects and others from libraries and archives that you can help with. Everyone can help to improve, describe and create our digital heritage.
Born Again: The Digitisation of the Anthropology Photographic Archive. 2004Rose Holley
The document summarizes a project to digitize the neglected anthropology photographic archive at the University of Auckland. Over 50,000 deteriorating negatives from 1950s-present were selected for scanning. A database was designed to preserve the images and improve access. Through a partnership with the library and anthropology department, 5,000 images were scanned over 2 years for $80,000. The digitization was successful in preserving parts of the unique collection and making it publicly searchable online.
The Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program: Helping Communities Access an...Rose Holley
The document summarizes the status and progress of the National Library of Australia's Newspaper Digitization Program. The key points are:
1) The program received $8 million in funding to digitize 3 million newspaper pages published between 1803-1954 over 4 years.
2) The first phase involves digitizing titles from each state, focusing on major titles. Regional titles may be added later.
3) Pilot digitization is underway, testing workflows and systems. Full production will commence to complete 3 million pages over 4 years.
4) A search and delivery prototype is being developed for public launch in 2008, allowing full text search of articles and browsing newspaper pages.
A Strategic Approach: GenAI in EducationPeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Assessment and Planning in Educational technology.pptxKavitha Krishnan
In an education system, it is understood that assessment is only for the students, but on the other hand, the Assessment of teachers is also an important aspect of the education system that ensures teachers are providing high-quality instruction to students. The assessment process can be used to provide feedback and support for professional development, to inform decisions about teacher retention or promotion, or to evaluate teacher effectiveness for accountability purposes.
This presentation includes basic of PCOS their pathology and treatment and also Ayurveda correlation of PCOS and Ayurvedic line of treatment mentioned in classics.
Executive Directors Chat Leveraging AI for Diversity, Equity, and InclusionTechSoup
Let’s explore the intersection of technology and equity in the final session of our DEI series. Discover how AI tools, like ChatGPT, can be used to support and enhance your nonprofit's DEI initiatives. Participants will gain insights into practical AI applications and get tips for leveraging technology to advance their DEI goals.
Main Java[All of the Base Concepts}.docxadhitya5119
This is part 1 of my Java Learning Journey. This Contains Custom methods, classes, constructors, packages, multithreading , try- catch block, finally block and more.
ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 42001, and GDPR: Best Practices for Implementation and...PECB
Denis is a dynamic and results-driven Chief Information Officer (CIO) with a distinguished career spanning information systems analysis and technical project management. With a proven track record of spearheading the design and delivery of cutting-edge Information Management solutions, he has consistently elevated business operations, streamlined reporting functions, and maximized process efficiency.
Certified as an ISO/IEC 27001: Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) Lead Implementer, Data Protection Officer, and Cyber Risks Analyst, Denis brings a heightened focus on data security, privacy, and cyber resilience to every endeavor.
His expertise extends across a diverse spectrum of reporting, database, and web development applications, underpinned by an exceptional grasp of data storage and virtualization technologies. His proficiency in application testing, database administration, and data cleansing ensures seamless execution of complex projects.
What sets Denis apart is his comprehensive understanding of Business and Systems Analysis technologies, honed through involvement in all phases of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). From meticulous requirements gathering to precise analysis, innovative design, rigorous development, thorough testing, and successful implementation, he has consistently delivered exceptional results.
Throughout his career, he has taken on multifaceted roles, from leading technical project management teams to owning solutions that drive operational excellence. His conscientious and proactive approach is unwavering, whether he is working independently or collaboratively within a team. His ability to connect with colleagues on a personal level underscores his commitment to fostering a harmonious and productive workplace environment.
Date: May 29, 2024
Tags: Information Security, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 42001, Artificial Intelligence, GDPR
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A workshop hosted by the South African Journal of Science aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers with little or no experience in writing and publishing journal articles.
Macroeconomics- Movie Location
This will be used as part of your Personal Professional Portfolio once graded.
Objective:
Prepare a presentation or a paper using research, basic comparative analysis, data organization and application of economic information. You will make an informed assessment of an economic climate outside of the United States to accomplish an entertainment industry objective.
A review of the growth of the Israel Genealogy Research Association Database Collection for the last 12 months. Our collection is now passed the 3 million mark and still growing. See which archives have contributed the most. See the different types of records we have, and which years have had records added. You can also see what we have for the future.
বাংলাদেশের অর্থনৈতিক সমীক্ষা ২০২৪ [Bangladesh Economic Review 2024 Bangla.pdf] কম্পিউটার , ট্যাব ও স্মার্ট ফোন ভার্সন সহ সম্পূর্ণ বাংলা ই-বুক বা pdf বই " সুচিপত্র ...বুকমার্ক মেনু 🔖 ও হাইপার লিংক মেনু 📝👆 যুক্ত ..
আমাদের সবার জন্য খুব খুব গুরুত্বপূর্ণ একটি বই ..বিসিএস, ব্যাংক, ইউনিভার্সিটি ভর্তি ও যে কোন প্রতিযোগিতা মূলক পরীক্ষার জন্য এর খুব ইম্পরট্যান্ট একটি বিষয় ...তাছাড়া বাংলাদেশের সাম্প্রতিক যে কোন ডাটা বা তথ্য এই বইতে পাবেন ...
তাই একজন নাগরিক হিসাবে এই তথ্য গুলো আপনার জানা প্রয়োজন ...।
বিসিএস ও ব্যাংক এর লিখিত পরীক্ষা ...+এছাড়া মাধ্যমিক ও উচ্চমাধ্যমিকের স্টুডেন্টদের জন্য অনেক কাজে আসবে ...
Strategies for Effective Upskilling is a presentation by Chinwendu Peace in a Your Skill Boost Masterclass organisation by the Excellence Foundation for South Sudan on 08th and 09th June 2024 from 1 PM to 3 PM on each day.
Crowdsourcing based curation and user engagement in digital library design
1. Crowdsourcing Based Curation and User
Engagement in Digital Library Design
Rose Holley
Special Collections Curator
r.holley@adfa.edu.au
25-27 October 2017, New Delhi
UNESCO-NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY OF INDIA
INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON KNOWLEDGE
ENGINEERING FOR DIGITAL LIBRARY DESIGN
4. Newspapers project team 2008
Rose Holley : Project
Manager IT and
Digitisation
Mark Raadgever: Quality
Assurance and
Stakeholder Engagement
Kent Fitch: Project
Computing
System Architect,
Programmer
Alexi Paschalidis: Oxide
Interactive. User interface
design and testing
Newspaper beta users and text correctors: functionality and
design Brownyn Lee:
Business Analyst
Ninh Nguyen:
Programmer
5. Led by users: Functionality and interface design
You need customer insight to craft solutions that your audience wants to
use. Knowing your audiences' expectations and aspirations is key to
developing useful and usable experiences that'll keep them coming back.
Have the ability to learn from your customers before, during and after
development…..
9. Clay Shirky ‘Cognitive Surplus’
The free time that people have on
their hands to engage in
collaborative activities, specially
as applies to web 2.0.
Wikipedia is an example of wide-
scale deployment of cognitive
surplus.
“The Internet will transform the
relationship between ordinary
individuals and large, hierarchical
institutions”
“The internet runs on love”
10. Motivations of Newspaper Text Correctors
Pleasure and fun
Worthy cause
It’s a big challenge
You’ve given us a high level of trust and respect to do this
We understood the big picture and the expected outcome
and wanted to help
Interesting - It’s about our Australian History
Interesting – It’s about my family
Interesting – It’s in my research or learning area
‘Many Hands Make Light Work’ by Rose Holley 2009
11. Motivations of Wikipedians
Fun – enjoying the activity
Ideology – expressing support for the underlying idealogy
of the activity (e.g. the belief that knowledge should be
free)
Values – expressing values to do with altruism and
helping others
Social – engaging with friends, taking part in activities
viewed favourably by others
Understanding – expanding knowledge through activities
Career – gaining work experience and skills
‘What motivates Wikipedians’ by Oded Nov 2007
12. Increasing motivation
Recognising achievements of the
group and individuals,
acknowledgements and rewards
(Hall of Fame, Progress Chart)
Team spirit – online camaraderie
– able to see and talk to others
online
Raising the bar – giving us more
work and challenges
Guidance - detailed instructions,
guided topics, short term goals
Treat your top users well they
achieve more than 50% of the work
Understand behaviours of
volunteers
e.g. duration of work, time of
work, engagement with
others, personal goals
13. Date started
Sept 2009
April 2012
Nov 2011
Sep 2008
July 2009
Sep 2010
Aug 2008
Aug 2008
April 2009
Leader board – hall of fame – ranking tables
19. Key good decision points
Login not required ….make it easy and open to all
No moderation or vetting of activity …. trust your users to do the right
thing
Edits are immediately live and searchable ….. make it
understandable and useful
Transparency of activity….let all users see what has been done, by
whom and when
Nick Youngson http://nyphotographic.com
20. Other things that work for crowdsourcing
Options on how to work the task
e.g. provide next article we want you to correct in a theme, or choose your own;
hard and long article vs easy and quick article..
Show progress chart against target
in prominent place on interface.
Share outcomes
Give rewards, recognition, lapel pins
Limited edition Trove pin 1 of 100.
21. What interests people – duck houses?
UK MP Expenses Scandal 2009
Power + Politics
Money + Sex
Scandal
People - known and of interest
Subject of interest and
relevance to wide audience
No experience/subject
knowledge required to help
For the public good
The luxury duck house cost tax payers £1,600
22. My top tips for crowdsourcing
The Activity The Content The Interface The volunteers
Clear goal
Big Challenge
Show Progress
Show Results
Interesting
People-History-
Science
Lots of it
More of it
Easy and fun
Reliable + quick
Intuitive
Different options
Trust them
Acknowledge
Rewards
Build team spirit
‘Crowdsourcing: How and why should libraries do it?’ by Rose Holley 2010
23. Success? When fun becomes addiction….
“I would like to say Australian
Newspapers is a great initiative
although I think there should be a
warning about using this site and
its possible addictive effects! I have
a great deal of trouble getting back
to what I should be doing at times.”
“When I first joined Galaxy
Zoo on 11th July 2007 my
record longest continuous
classifying period of time
was 12 hours. I kept
classifying when eating
sandwiches as my lunch &
dinner. It is deadly
addictive.”
“While going through a whole month in a slightly obsessive crazed
mind searching Australian Newspapers online, I just realised the
kilos I’ve stacked on in just one month. I can’t seem to snap out of
it; from dawn til dusk I seem to be in this website. Housework
seems to have taken a backburner and meals are starting to come
out of cans……..”
24. Cost benefit analysis
Wikipedia: 2008 study
estimated that 100 million
hours had been spent by
volunteers creating Wikipedia
articles in the first 6 years.
National Library of Australia –
Newspaper Text Correction: 2013
estimated that volunteer work was
valued at $12 million
My own calculations: 2017 the value
is in excess of $44 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_community https://www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/trove-crowdsourcing-
behaviour.pdf
25. Success? Australian Newspaper Text Corrections
15 billion lines total
Approx 50-60% of lines
may need correcting
= 8 billion lines
231 million lines corrected by
volunteers
Over last 9 years
26. Monthly activity
newspaper text
correction
Approx 8,000 registered users active per
month. Nearly 50,000 users registered in last 9
years out of user base of approx 10 million.
Approx 3 million lines of text corrected total per
month
Average lines corrected per month by top
users over last 9 years is 16 - 60,000 lines per
month.
27. Cognitive surplus saturation point?
Wikipedia (established 17 years)
2001 - 2007……. Volunteers grow exponentially (6 years)
2007 - 2011……. Volunteers plateau.
By Nov 2011 31.7 million registered editors and 270,000 active monthly = 8%
128,267 registered active users per month in English edition of Wikipedia
Note: Actively involved volunteers are a tiny % of the total number of people using
Wikipedia and Trove which is millions.
Trove newspaper text correctors (established 9 years)
2008 - 2012……… Volunteers grow exponentially (5 years)
2012 - 2017………. Volunteers plateau
By May 2017 50,000 registered text correctors and 8,000 active monthly = 16%
Zooniverse (established 9 years)
2008 – 2014…… Volunteers grow exponentially 1 million registered users.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_community
28. If yes – what will you do differently?
And finally…….
29. OverProof: Post OCR text correction software
http://overproof.projectcomputing.com/
This is the current interface of Trove. It has gone through some design changes in the last few years, but in essence is little different to the original design. The backbone of Trove is the union library catalogue of Australia which has physical and digital holdings from over 2,000 libraries in Australia. Trove also harvests data resources from other institutions such as Archives, Galleries and Museums and our national TV broadcaster the ABC, making this a really useful Australian information portal. But what makes Trove really well used by millions of Australians is the main body of content which is 211 million digitised Australian historic newspaper articles from 1,200 different newspapers from around Australia, dating from 1803 to 1955. The newspaper zone is also the area in which the majority of the user curation is occurring, and which has captured the interest of libraries internationally due to the public text correction activity.
This slide shows the interface for Australian Newspapers which is a sub interface within Trove. I have searched for an article on Unesco New Delhi and I am now seeing the article in the newspaper viewer. You can see on the left hand side the OCR’d text with user options and on the right the image of the newspaper page. Both text size and image can be increased in size.
A user can undertake a number of activities on the article by hovering their mouse over the icons on the left hand side, including correction of text by clicking the ‘fix this text’ button, adding comments, tags, adding the article to a list, sharing or downloading the article and also ordering a high resolution copy. I will not go into detail about this user interface because you can try it yourself. It is really easy to use.
Image zooming and panning was based on an open-source library inspired by the Google map viewer, which was the idea of Kent Fitch of Project Computing, the reliable system architect and programmer we worked with.
Our team was very small consisting of only 6 people, with the key IT roles being external contractors.
Right up front we made two decisions, firstly to have the system live on the National Library website as we developed it, so we branded it ‘beta’, and secondly we wanted direct and active involvement from the users on its development. In fact for the first three years all development was actually led 100% by our users feedback.
What we did was to put a notice on our website ‘testers wanted’. We expected perhaps 20 people to contact us, but after only a few days we had to take the notice down because so many people had emailed us. We also did not expect the use to take off as quickly as it did, so we had thousands of live users at a very early stage.
The way we engaged with users was to have a prominent link on every page saying ‘contact us with feedback’.
We did not specifically ask for feedback on functionality or design, but most of the feedback was around these two topics. If we had more than 10 users within a few days ask us for the same functionality or interface design then we implemented the change immediately, for example to change the size of the font, or ability to add a missing line.
Most of the users were astounded by the fact their requests were implemented, and that we responded to them by email directly and immediately, and this seemed to engage them to a much higher level than we had expected. So at this point we had no software development plan and were making many small incremental changes on a daily basis led by users. You have to remember that nothing like this had ever been done before so we were feeling our way in the dark.
Quite quickly the users expectations shifted and instead of asking things like “can I do this?” they said “where do I do this”? Users initially seemed to have their functionality and design expectations based on Google as the benchmark, and when we surpassed Google they got really excited. We encouraged users not to place limits on their expectations and they quickly started to ask us for all kinds of things.
It was a very exciting time working on this and we knew we were onto something really important. I still consider it a great honour that I was able to have so much freedom to run with innovative ideas, make decisions, and have such excellent customer focused people on my team to create the Australian Newspapers Service, which eventually morphed into Trove.
We also engaged two young students just out of University who had formed a web design company Oxide Interactive to undertake user case studies, prototyping, interface design and usability testing. There were four rounds of testing with five different users each time.
Oxide basically just took a group of people off the streets in Canberra and sat them down in front of prototypes and then the site and asked them to do various things like search for a newspaper, correct the text etc. and then modified the interface based on their feedback. At this time there was a strong expectation from the librarians who were contributing newspapers to the new service, that the functionality and interface design should be decided by librarians rather than random people off the street or real users, since they thought librarian’s would know better. We strongly resisted this and continued using our real users to lead us in development, which is why I think the interface was such a great success.
People asked us why anyone would want to be involved in curating content when not being paid for it and I have two answers to that question.
Firstly expectations of users have changed in the digital age. With online technologies users can be easily enabled to help us gather, create, curate and add value to our resources, and they want to. Why shouldn’t they? The gatekeeper role of the library has changed into that of enabler, giving people freedom to do what they want with our resources, add value and use them in new ways.
Secondly I was greatly inspired by Clay Shirky’s book published in 2008 ‘Here Comes Everybody’ which explains his idea that everyone has some ‘cognitive surplus’. This is people’s leisure time, most often spent watching TV, that could be harnessed and used instead on doing things that matter, for the common good, that require a bit of brainwork or creativity. The internet is the enabler for this activity allowing anyone to build online communities that can come together to achieve amazing things. He says “As the Internet radically reduces the costs of collective action for everyone, it will transform the relationship between ordinary individuals and the large, hierarchical institutions”. He also coined the phrase “the internet runs on love”. His idea of cognitive surplus certainly proved to be correct in 2008 with the involvement of millions of individuals in the creation of Wikipedia, the citizen science projects of Zooniverse and Australian Newspapers.
In 2009 I undertook some research on our text correctors behaviours and motivations, which I published in a report ‘Many Hands Make Light Work’. You can see on this slide some of the main reasons why people wanted to be involved. The most cited reason being it is pleasure and fun.
Interestingly what I found out about motivations correlated closely to a study carried out by Oded Nov in 2007 on the motivations of people contributing to Wikipedia. Again the top reason given for editing and creating articles was fun.
People also have a strong desire to help with something that is for the common good, in this case free knowledge, and in the case of the newspapers improving the word searching, especially so that family names can be found. Over 50% of the corrections are done on names appearing in the births, deaths and marriages sections and shipping news.
It’s important to understand motivations of people so that you can create something where people will want to join in.
I have also researched ways that user motivation can be maintained or increased. This slide shows the key things that increase motivation of users. These include recognising their achievements, developing camaraderie and team spirit with online communication mechanisms, giving them more work, and guiding them in targeted projects or short term goals. It is very important to remember that a tiny percentage of all your users – the top 100, undertake the large majority of the work. Once these users are identified you need to pay close attention to any feedback they give you or functionality they ask for since these people are the kingpins and essential to the success of your service. In the next few slides I will give you some examples of the functionality our top users asked us to implement.
In our first beta version we only had a list of the top 5 correctors. Very quickly many users requested a complete ranking table because they wanted to see where they were in the overall big picture. Stakeholders thought we had started to make the text correcting deliberately competitive, but we had not, the rankings were entirely in response to our users asking for them.
It is interesting to note here, that there is a massive loyalty, since of the Top 10 correctors you can see that three have been contributing since first year of launch, (which is now 9 years ago) and three since the second year of launch. All except the Frankston Library joint account have been helping at consistently high levels for at least 6 years.
The ranking table also shows the big picture, which our users wanted to know. 246 million lines in total have been corrected. The top users have corrected 1.6 to 4.6 million lines total. It would be very hard now for a new person to get into the top 10 since these people have years behind them. There are about 50,000 registered correctors.
The users wanted more than a ranking list, they wanted to be able to see the profile and interests of the users around them. Each user can see anyone else’s activity including tags, comments, text corrections and lists. For users who have a tag cloud it is clear to see their interests. In this example the user is interested in shipwrecks, railway disasters, obituaries, family notices and poetry.
There is also more information and statistics on text correction in the profile, you can for example see how many lines per month this user has been doing, and that she now holds ranking 5 in the hall of fame, with nearly 3 million lines corrected overall.
This user is a champion for the service and is often out and about giving talks on the content of newspapers, search techniques and text correction.
We are looking at the profile of the same user on this slide and you can see in detail her comments and text corrections both before and after changes. Having this high level of transparency was important to us and the users, since there was no moderation on activity. Any changes a user makes go live immediately. If they correct a word to the correct spelling it is immediately searchable. By doing this it clearly shows the value of the activity to the user. Also it assumes that users can be trusted and when a high level of trust is gifted it is usually human nature to honour this.
Our strategy was to rely on the users to alert us if anything unexpected happened, which it never did in the 6 years I managed it. It would have been very difficult to moderate changes since there were thousands of users and the average activity of the top users is between 16 to 60,000 lines per month.
This slide shows the same user in the Trove forum. Users can share as much information as they like about themselves, and communicate with the project team or with each other. Initially we did not build a communication mechanism into the service and we emailed users directly when they contacted us. However in the early days before we understood how much users wanted to talk to each other we observed a strange activity in the comments. Users were trying to connect with each other by leaving comments with their phone numbers and emails in articles that were heavily corrected, that many users would see. We were surprised by this and immediately set about investigating how to implement a forum, so that the virtual community as a whole could see each other, form sub interest groups, and build online camaraderie. Sub groups that developed where for example the people using knitting patterns, railway history enthusiasts, and local history groups. There were University researchers: one doing climate change and one doing influenza who galvanised groups of people to help them find and correct articles relevant to their research topics.
I added this slide to show the three main types of user discussion that went on in the forum. Firstly functionality – how to do things and error testing, secondly enhancement requests, and thirdly queries on which newspaper titles would be digitised.
So to summarise. The key good decision points we made in the crowdsourcing journey were:
Login is not required – make it as easy as possible for people to try it out without commitment or unnecessary barriers. As you have seen many users did decide later to register because otherwise they could not get in the ranking tables or see their own history of activity.
No moderation or vetting of activity. We placed a level of trust in the users, which they responded positively to. We relied on the user community to let us know if anything was wrong. However the original version of the text remains searchable if a user were to vandalise or delete it, and vandalism would be easy to reverse with rollback to before and after dates of changes.
All curation including corrections, tags and comments are immediately live within milliseconds and can be searched on. This really impressed users, helped them understand the big picture, and immediately improved the service for them.
A high level of transparency. Everyone can see all text changes to an article and who has done them and when – we retain the whole history and make it viewable. This also enabled roll back if required if anything went wrong, but it never did.
From my research into other crowdsourcing projects there are also another four things that ideally could be done to motivate and encourage users, which other sites have used successfully. These include having different options for users to work on your tasks, for example, for those not doing their own topics they generally prefer to be given work. We were asked lots of times by text correctors if we could define groups of articles for them to work on, instead of them having to search for their own.
Also it is important to have progress against the goal clearly visible to motivate users, if it is possible.
Users like to be kept informed about how their work fits into the big picture both in statistical format and through things like exciting discoveries and new research.
Lastly we had many requests for small tokens that would make users proud of their work and identifiable to others, mainly in the form of t-shirts, and lapel pins.
It is important to remember that no matter how good your functionality and interface is, the main goal of your crowdsourcing activity and the subject content are critical to its success. The goal has to be for the common good, to benefit as many people as possible, and the content has to be really interesting to a wide audience. Boring or niche topics will never attract a large body of people, of those for which a high level of prior knowledge is necessary.
Of all the crowdsourcing projects I have researched the one that galvanised a nation, even more so than Australian Newspapers is the UK Parliamentary Expenses Scandal in 2009, otherwise referred to as the duck house scandal. This was a major political scandal concerning expenses that MP’s had claimed which included everything from the luxury duck house pictured to prostitutes and second homes. It is a perfect example of topics that make a project interesting. It covered power, politics, people, money, and sex. It appealed to a wide audience and was for the common good. In a matter of days, after the original documents were released under a Freedom of Information Act every single expense claim from every MP, which was about 400,000 barely legible handwritten pages, had been transcribed, tagged and flagged by the public in record time, in a crowdsourcing interface created by the Guardian newspaper.
The opening and identification of the information resulted in resignations, sackings, prosecutions and imprisonments of members of the House of Commons and Lords.
This table shows a summary of my top tips for crowdsourcing. More information can be found in my published paper ‘Crowdsourcing, how and why should libraries do it’?, with some samples of user interface designs.
A measure of the success of your site is when it changes from being fun to being addictive. Both the Australian Newspapers and the Zooniverse citizen science projects have been described by many users as ‘addictive’ and both have retained a core group of loyal users for years, who are spending much longer per session and many more hours per week than you would expect. On both these projects some users are working as if it is a full time job.
Addiction comes when you have the perfect combination of interesting content and main goal and all the functionality and interface design points we have discussed, that have been developed based on user feedback and involvement. That is your service 100% meets the needs and expectations of your users.
What is the likely cost benefit in all this volunteer curation?
In April 2008, writer Clay Shirky and computer scientist Martin Wattenberg estimated the total time volunteer editors had spent creating Wikipedia at that point was roughly 100 million hours.
In 2013 the National Library of Australia estimated that if staff had been employed to do text correction it would have cost in the vicinity of $12 million.
In October 2017 my own calculations for the cost benefit of text correctors was in excess of $44 million:
I calculated this by working out that in a single hour an average person can correct 95 lines (although top text correctors are doing double this amount). The 246 million total corrected lines from the last 9 years equate to 2.5 million hours work. At the Australian minimum wage of $17.70 per hour this equals $44 million. This figure does not include the overheads or office space to house approximately 8,000 workers each month.
But was does success really mean? In the case of Australian Newspapers the goal was to improve the quality of the search by increasing the overall accuracy of the corpus. Arguably this has not been significantly achieved as we will see shortly. However what has occurred – the creation of an active vibrant community that has become socially engaged across many physical and virtual communities was a runaway success, even though very little thought had been given to this at the start and it was not even an articulated goal.
Let’s look at this graph. The red line shows the increasing amount of newspaper articles being added to Trove over the last 9 years, measured by lines. By May 2017 this year there were 15 billion lines of newspaper text, which equates to 208 million articles. Based on research data I believe that perhaps half to two thirds of the articles have lines that need correcting which is approximately 8 billion lines. The blue line at the bottom shows the actual lines corrected by volunteers so far, which is 231 million. When we started this presentation that seemed a lot, but now we compare it to the goal and see it visually on the graph, it is but a drop in the ocean and doesn’t seem very much at all. What this means is that the corpus has not been significantly improved in quality after all, which was the single aim of the crowdsourcing. This is the first time I have clearly understood this big picture myself and properly analysed the data. Don’t get me wrong – the quality is not terrible, it’s still above 90% character accuracy, it is just that we wanted it to be perfect, and it seems so hard to achieve this last little step of perfection.
So if we want to continue striving for perfection – what are our options to do this? Can we encourage more volunteers to join us or our existing users to do more corrections?
Let’s examine more closely the activity of our text correctors. We have two charts here: the top shows the average number of users actively making corrections each month and the bottom shows the amount of lines corrected per month. You can see that during the first few years of the project the number of users and corrections was rising exponentially. When I was doing my first research on crowdsourcing in 2009 there was a direct correlation between amount of new content added and increasing activity of all users.
However you can see that in the last few years, despite more new content being added the activity is levelling out. It is currently remaining fairly consistent in that there are about 8,000 registered users active per month, correcting a total of 3 million lines per month. What we know from our ranking tables is that the top users are correcting much more than anyone else, which is up to 60,000 lines per month.
Research on other similar services including Wikipedia and Zooniverse show a similar pattern developing. It appears that at a certain point in time the cognitive surplus saturation point is reached. In Wikipedia the saturation point is 8% of registered users are active each month. It was originally thought that this could be because most of the encyclopaedia is now written. However since Australian Newspapers is showing the same pattern with saturation point at 16% of registered users, even when there is more content than ever before to correct, there may actually be something else happening. It is interesting to note that many of the volunteers who want to help with common good goals are actually involved in more than one crowdsourcing project and they divide their time equally between several worthy causes. I think further research on some of the established long term and large crowdsourcing projects is needed to get a better idea of what is actually happening here.
I am now nearing the end of this presentation so I want to address the question “if you were starting over again from scratch, would you do anything differently now, based on what you have learnt in the last ten years and the advances in technology”?
My answer is yes, however there is only one thing I would do differently.
Over the last ten years we have seen great advances in artificial intelligence, that is using computers to do things that previously could only be achieved by human intelligence using the mind, eye or hand. For example advances in facial recognition software which enables Facebook to recognise and tag you in other people’s photos.
Combined with these advances in intelligent software is the fact that we now have massive corpuses of newspaper text that has been corrected both by automated OCR software and manually by the human hand. We did not have any sample data like this when we started back in 2007.
Software can be trained by looking for patterns, and repeating these patterns millions of times. Neural networks allow massive processing capability in a timely way. Hardware to support this is becoming cheaper every day.
I want to introduce you to a new concept. That is to use artificial intelligence based software to improve the accuracy of text, which has been trained using a giant newspaper corpus of manual corrections. This software would be applied after standard OCR correction has taken place and before manual crowdsourcing activity. It should significantly improve the accuracy of text and therefore searching.
Software research and development in this field has been ongoing for the last 7 years, most notably from the European Funded IMPACT group and also from Project Computing in Australia, which is the company Kent Fitch, the systems architect of Australian Newspapers and Trove, works for.
I will now talk about OverProof, which is a product on the market that I would use if I was doing the same project again with English language newspapers. OverProof has been trained using many of the manual corrections applied to Australian Newspapers, and uses multiple OCR error models and models of the English Language. It is noted that even the manual corpus still contains errors. The manual corrected corpus is referred to as the gold or ground truth. The software runs through a training sequence where it checks against the entire ground truth for example 100 million lines several times, for example 100 times, before it is ready for business. The difference about OverProof is that is correcting and measuring at word level rather than character level, because the artificial intelligence enables better understanding of words and their context.
Tests show that when applying OverProof on the Australian newspapers the word accuracy is raised from about 80% to 94% which is significant. Note this accuracy level is not related to OCR character accuracy, and also that word accuracy probably cannot be raised above 96%, since some of the original print is unreadable or missing.
If you go to the OverProof website you can read a lot more about the development, testing sample and training sets. Also on the site is a demo. I have pasted a sample of poor quality article text I found in Australian newspapers that had many errors into the box and then I click the ‘correct’ button. You can see on the right the original quality of the paper.
Instantly the text is corrected and the words changed are highlighted. You can see the obvious improvement. This is quite a radical breakthrough. Obviously you would not manually use it like this, but run it across the corpus in an automated process. This software is available now.
If you were starting from scratch, then obviously it would be logical to use this software or similar.
[Ending]
Well, that concludes my presentation on crowdsourcing based curation, and user engagement in digital library design.
I hope that you have found this information interesting and relevant to your own project, and that you are now able to apply some of the things we have learned here in Australia. I wish you all the best for the Unesco National Digital Library of India project! Thank you.