The document summarizes the results of a pilot survey of GLAM institutions in Switzerland regarding their readiness for open data and crowdsourcing. It finds that while a critical mass of institutions have adopted open data practices, adoption of crowdsourcing faces higher perceived risks. The majority view the opportunities of open data as outweighing the risks but have reservations about freely licensing content. Implications discussed include focusing initial outreach on simple content release and demonstrating the benefits of cooperation to foster greater engagement.

1. Are GLAMs Ready for Open Data and Crowdsourcing?
Results of a pilot survey from Switzerland and their
implications for GLAM-Wiki outreach
Beat Estermann, 10 August 2013 – Wikimania, Hong Kong
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

2. Introduction
• Background
• Survey among GLAMs in Switzerland
• Pilot GLAM-Wiki cooperations in Switzerland / exchanges with GLAM
representatives
• Focus of this Session:
• What are the implications of the results for Wikimedia? What can we do
to facilitate Open Data and Crowdsourcing in the GLAM sector?
• Discussion / exchange of experiences
• Structure:
• Survey results in a condensed form
• Theses for discussion
2

3. Where do Swiss GLAMs stand today with regard to…?
3
…Digitization?
…Exchange of metadata in multilateral cooperation?
…Open Data?
…Crowdsourcing?
…Linked Open Data?
What are the perceived risks and opportunities? (drivers vs. hindering factors)
What are the expected benefits? Who are the beneficiaries?
Awareness Evaluation AdoptionTrialInterest
Innovation Diffusion Model,
Everett Rogers, 1962

4. Pilot Study among Swiss GLAMs
GLAMs in Switzerland:
• ca. 600-700 independent GLAMs of national or regional significance
• ca. 1000 independent GLAMs organized in three umbrella organizations
Our sample: memory institutions of national significance in the German-speaking
part of Switzerland
• 197 organisations contacted (233 e-mail addresses)
• 72 questionnaires completed (34% of the contacted organisations)
Caveats:
• The sample is rather small (results are not very precise with regard to the
entire Swiss GLAM population, large confidence intervals apply)
• Archives are over-represented in the sample (higher response rate);
museums and «other institutions» are under-represented; libraries are about
average. 4

5. Innovation Diffusion among Swiss GLAMs: The Overall Picture
5
A critical mass has been reached.
How about the laggards?
Will we see a higher rate of adoption for
Open Data than for Crowdsourcing?
Some institutions are starting to think
about Linked Data…

6. Open Data / Open Content Readiness
6
Between 1% and 7% of responding GLAMs make scans/photographs of
their heritage objects «freely» available on the Internet.
Over half of them make them available on the Internet, but with restrictions.
40% don’t make them available at all.
Over 50% of the GLAMs which make their heritage objects available on the
Internet do not understand that you cannot make works available for
Wikipedia and simultaneously prevent their modification and/or their
commercial use!

7. Open Data: Target Groups, Opportunities vs. Risks
Main target groups:
• Research and education
• Private individuals
• Cultural institutions
Main opportunities:
• Better visibility and accessibility of holdings
• Better visibility of the institutions
• Better networking among GLAMs.
Main risks:
• Extra time effort and expenses (loss of revenue is hardly seen as a risk)
• Loss of control: copyright, data protection, secrecy infringements 7

8. Desirability and Importance of Open Data
8
0%
1%
6% 6%
7%
36%
25%
11%
6%
3%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
-10 to -
8
-8 to -6 -6 to -4 -4 to -2 -2 to 0 0 to 2 2 to 4 4 to 6 6 to 8 8 to 10
Desirability of Open Data (in % of institutions, N=71)
1%
8% 7%
3%
21%
31%
8% 14%
6%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
very
important
important neither, nor unimportant no answer
Importance / Desirability of Open Data
(in % of institutions; N=71)
risks prevail opportunities prevail
For over 80% of responding GLAMs the opportunities outweigh the risks of
Open Data.
Over 50% think Open Data is an important issue; almost all of these believe
that the opportunities outweigh the risks.

9. Open Data / “Free” Licensing of Content
9
59%
76%
60%
29%
7%
69%
40%
21%
19%
23%
26%
9%
20%
34%
1%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
For private useFor education and researchFor charitable projectsFor charitable projects, such as Wikipedia, which also permit
commercial use
For users who are intending to commercially exploit themOnly if the name of the institution remains attached to the dataOnly if the work will be re-used in unmodified form
Conditions under which they would make memory objects freely accessible on the Internet
(in % der Institutionen; N=70)
"is partly the case"
"is the case"
Most GLAMs wouldn’t readily agree to «freely» license their content – even in
the absence of third party rights: they would like to prevent the commercial use
at no charge as well as the modification of works. Education, Research, and a
non-profit purpose are good arguments in favour of free licensing.

10. 10
Crowdsourcing Readiness
11% of responding GLAMs have staff members who
contribute to Wikipedia as part of their professional activity.
10% of responding GLAMs say that online volunteering
plays partly an important role for them.
Interestingly, no correlation was found between the two
variables.

11. Crowdsourcing: Opportunities vs. Risks
11
Main areas of application:
• Classification tasks / completion of metadata
• Ca. 50% of GLAMs perceive a need to improve their metadata.
• Main areas for improvement: completeness, availability, digitization
• Transcription and correction tasks
Main drawbacks:
• Considerable time / effort needed for preparation and follow-up
• No guarantee concerning long-term data maintenance
• Unforeseeable results
• Difficulties in estimating the time-effort
• Low level of planning security

12. 12
Desirability and Importance of Crowdsourcing
4%
15%
19%
11%
43%
3% 3% 1%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
-10 to -
8
-8 to -6 -6 to -4 -4 to -2 -2 to 0 0 to 2 2 to 4 4 to 6 6 to 8 8 to 10
Desirability of Crowdsourcing (in % of institutions; N=69)
10%
25%
14%
29%
16%
3%
1%
1%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
very
important
important neither, nor unimportant no answer
Importance / Desirability of Crowdsourcing
(in % of institutions; N=69)
risks prevail opportunities prevail
For over 90% of the responding GLAMs the risks of Crowdsourcing are at least
as great as the opportunities. For half of them the risks clearly prevail.
Among GLAMs which think that Crowdsourcing is an important issue, the risk
perception is equally high.
Crowdsourcing is seen as almost as important as Open Data!

13. Digitization and Availability on the Internet /
Exchange of Metadata
13
60% of institutions make metadata and reproductions of heritage
objects at least partly available on the Internet. 40% still don’t!
61% of the responding GLAMs exchange metadata with other
institutions. 39% don’t.
30% do so in the context of bilateral cooperation; 43% in the context of
multilateral cooperation.
For 29% the exchange of metadata is part of their core mission. 17% say
this is partly the case.

14. Implications for Wikimedia – Theses (1/3)
• In the short term, it is worthwhile to pursue approaches that do not
require a high level of mutual engagement between GLAMs and
the community (simply releasing content is easier than engaging in
more complex cooperation!)
• Wikipedia / Wikimedia has excellent arguments in favor of the “free”
release of content:
• It’s for education and research
• It’s for a non-profit cause
• It’s useful (documenting the use / usefulness is important!)
• Wikipedia / Wikimedia can be an attractive partner within the Open
Data movement and should join forces with the Open Knowledge
Foundation and national Open Government Data initiatives!
14

15. Implications for Wikimedia – Theses (2/3)
• Education / information efforts with regard to GLAMs need to focus on:
• Knowledge about the “free” licensing requirement of Wikipedia
• Positive accounts how the relative loss of control is managed by other
institutions
• Demonstrating how the provenance of the data / content is documented
• Examples of how a useful content contribution can be made without any
extra effort (often, removing the non-commercial claim in the license
would already be of great help!)
• Communication efforts with regard to GLAMs should focus on:
• Putting collections and cross-organizational themes at the center of
attention (and not the institution)
• Telling them how released contents have been used and what types of
content would be particularly useful
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16. Implications for Wikimedia – Theses (3/3)
• Real cooperation is costly. It is important to demonstrate and document
its usefulness and to foster learning processes that benefit the entire
GLAM sector.
• The Wikimedia movement should examine to what extent it can
respond to GLAMs' needs and expectations in terms of metadata
improvement and correction/transcription tasks and communicate
clearly about it.
• The Wikimedia movement should examine to what extent it can support
digitization efforts of GLAMs that haven't been digitizing their heritage
objects yet – in exchange for “free” licensing. And communicate clearly
about it.
• Metadata is important for GLAMs: The potential of Wikidata with regard
to GLAM metadata should be better explored.
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17. Implications for Wikimedia - Discussion
Now it’s your turn...
Minutes:
http://etherpad.wmflabs.org/pad/p/glamsurvey
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18. Outlook / Next Steps
• Promote the study among GLAMs and political actors in Switzerland
• Orient GLAM outreach activities in the light of the findings
• Promote “free” licensing at a large scale, cf. OpenGLAM Principles
• Foster mutual learning in the area of Crowdsourcing and (Linked) Open
Data (OpenGLAM Network); make sure that benefits are achieved and
documented; improve coordination along the supply-chain
• Examine ways to improve digitization coverage
• Evaluate the demand for follow-up studies:
• Study with a larger sample in Switzerland
• Longitudinal study in Switzerland
(e.g. similar survey in 2014 to measure the changes)
• International benchmark study
Please contact me if you are interested!
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19. Thank You for Your Participation!
Full study report:
English: http://tinyurl.com/SwissGLAMsurvey
Deutsch: http://tinyurl.com/GLAMStudie
Contact details:
Beat Estermann
E-mail: beat.estermann@bfh.ch
Phone: +41 31 848 34 38
Affiliations:
Research Associate, E-Government Institute, Bern University of Applied Sciences
Member of opendata.ch (Swiss Chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation)
Member of Digitale Allmend (Swiss Chapter of CreativeCommons)
Member of Wikimedia CH
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. 19