Digital History workshop: Crowdsourcing in the Humanities and cultural heritage sector. Victoria University of Wellington 23 April 2013 Session: How <del>not</del> to run a crowdsourcing project: lessons from Transcribe Bentham Presenter: Valerie Wallace http://wtap.vuw.ac.nz/wordpress/digital-history/events/crowdsourcing-workshop/presenters/

1. ‘How <del>not</del> to run a
crowdsourcing project: lessons from
Transcribe Bentham'
Dr Valerie Wallace, History Programme, VUWDr Valerie Wallace, History Programme, VUW
(valerie.wallace@vuw.ac.nz)(valerie.wallace@vuw.ac.nz)

2. The Bentham ProjectThe Bentham Project
• Established in 1959
• Produces The Collected Works of Jeremy
Bentham (1748-1832), the influential jurist,
reformer, and philosopher.
• First two volumes published in 1968 and to
date, 28 of a proposed 70 have been
published, including 12 of the proposed 14
vols of Correspondence.

3. Challenges facing the Bentham Project:Challenges facing the Bentham Project:
How to speed up editorial production and
create a searchable, accessible digital
resource?
Answer: Crowdsource transcription
In 2010 40,000 of 72,500
manuscripts were
untranscribed

4. The Transcription DeskThe Transcription Desk
http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/Transcribe_Bentham and
http//:www.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham

7. Process of checking volunteer transcriptsProcess of checking volunteer transcripts

8. Legacy
transcr
ipts
PROJECT WEBSITEPROJECT EDITORS
DIGITAL
REPOSITORY
Images
Metada
ta
TEI
transcri
pts
Retro-
conversion
to TEI
Quality
assurance
Manuscri
pts
Training
material
s
Registra
tion
Discussi
on
forum
Transcription tool
Ideas
bank
BlogWeb
pages
Folio
catalo
gue
TRANSCRIPTION
WIKI
TEI
Transcripts
COLLECTED
WORKS
Courtesy of
Martin Moyle,
UCL Library
Services

9. Volunteer transcript stored in UCL’s Bentham Papers digitalVolunteer transcript stored in UCL’s Bentham Papers digital
repository (www.ucl.ac.uk/library/bentham)repository (www.ucl.ac.uk/library/bentham)

10. Volunteer motivations

11. Some results from Transcribe Bentham
• 2410 registered accounts
• 362 active transcribers
• 15 super transcribers
• 5205 transcribed manuscripts (c.2.6 million
words)
(As of 8 March 2013)

12. Manuscripts worked on by volunteers, 8 September
2010 to 8 March 2013
Number of
manuscripts worked
on
Number of volunteers
(percentage)
0 2048 (84.9)
1 225 (9.3)
2 66 (2.7)
3 24 (0.9)
4 6 (0.2)
5 to 20 25 (1)
21 to 50 3 (0.1)
51 to 100 5 (0.2)
101 to 200 3 (0.1)
201 to 500 2 (<0.1)
501 to 999 1 (<0.1)
1000+ 2 (<0.1)
Total 2410 (100)

13. Some tips on project management:
• Don’t get lost in translation. The team must
communicate effectively.
• Don’t underestimate the time it takes to manage
volunteers.
• Simplify the task as much as possible
• Funding runs out fast. Think ahead.
• Tools are quickly rendered obsolete. Be ready to
adapt.
• Secure the right publicity!

14. • Code for Transcribe Bentham MediaWiki plugins:
http://code.google.com/p/tb-transcription-desk/,
last accessed 15 June 2012.
Public Records Office of Victoria

15. For more information see:
• Tim Causer, Justin Tonra, and Valerie Wallace, ‘Transcription
Maximized; Expense Minimized? Crowdsourcing and Editing The
Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham’, Literary and Linguistic
Computing, 27/2 (2012)
• Tim Causer and Valerie Wallace, ‘Building a Volunteer Community:
Results and Findings from Transcribe Bentham’, 6/2 (2012),
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/6/2/000125/000125.html