Crowdsourcing Strategies for Archives Rose Holley 8-12 November 2010

What is crowdsourcing? Social engagement (web 2.0) = Interactions with data on a personal level Marking, reviewing, correcting, classifying items etc to help yourself May require less involvement and effort than crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing = Large group of unpaid volunteers Each doing small tasks Working towards a clear goal Goal is big and for the ‘common good’ Usually using social engagement strategies

For Example  Making out of copyright books electronically available  Transcribing birth, death and marriage hand written records so that they become searchable  Writing articles to make a free online encyclopedia

Benefits for archives 1.Achieving goals that the archive does not have resource for 2.Quick results for a big task 3.Active engagement with the community 4.Utilising knowledge of community

Benefits 5.Improving/adding value/opening access to your resource/service 6.Encouraging sense of public ownership and responsibility towards cultural heritage items 7.Building trust and loyalty of the community 8.Demonstrating relevance and value of archives

Australian Newspapers

User Interaction at article level

Achievements November 2009 (1 year in)  6,000+ volunteers  7 million lines of text corrected in in 318,000 newspaper articles  200,000 tags added  4,600 comments added

FamilySearchIndexing

Achievements January 2009 (4 years in)  160,000 volunteers  334 million BDM name records transcribed internationally

The Guardian MP’s Expenses

Achievements June 2009 (80 hours in)  20,000 volunteers  170,000 pages read and checked

Picture Australia

Achievements October 2009 (4 years in)  2,641 volunteers  55,664 images created and added to the collection

Galaxy Zoo

Achievements July 2008 (1 year in)  150,000 volunteers  50 million galaxy images classified

BBC WW2 Peoples War

Achievements January 2006 (2.5 yrs and end of project)  32,000 volunteers  47,000 memories added  15,000 personal images added

Distributed Proofreaders

Achievements October 2009 (9 years in)  90,000 volunteers (3,000 active per month)  16,000 E-books created and available (consistently create approx 2,000 per year)

Wikipedia

Achievements December 2008 (8 years in)  156,000 active volunteers out of 10 million total  A free online encyclopaedia  3 million articles created in English Wikipedia  10 million articles created in 250 languages

Shipping in Australian waters

FreeUKGen

Tips for archives  Are there common factors with these successful sites?  Why are they working so well?  Specific examples of strategies.  How to apply these – the tips for crowdsourcing.

Common Factors? YES!!! 1.Volunteer numbers and achievements 2.Volunteer profiles 3.Volunteer motivations 4.Rewards and acknowledgement 5.Management of volunteers

Volunteer numbers and achievements  All started ‘quietly’  None have done major advertising  Most harnessed small numbers initially which grew rapidly  In all cases volunteers did far more work to a higher standard than expected  Significant achievements

Volunteer Profile – anyone/everyone Flickr: LucLeqay

Volunteer profile  Majority of work done by 10% of people = ‘super’ volunteers  Age varies  Prefer to work for non-profit making orgs  Almost always ‘educational’  50/50 ‘volunteering’ /interested in subject  50/50 want to choose work/be given work

Volunteer motivations  I love it  It’s interesting and fun  It is a worthy cause  I am helping with something important e.g. recording history, finding new things, discovering scientific items

Motivations  You put a lot of trust in me  It’s a big challenge  I can help the group  I want to give something back to community  It’s addictive

Increasing motivation Give more stuff to do Progress chart Raise the bar Online camaraderie Clear instructions Acknowledgement Reward

Rewards and Acknowledgement  Identifying individuals  Options to have profiles public  Ranking tables  Certificates  Promotional gifts  Meeting paid staff

Management of volunteers  Volunteers manage each other  Be IT savvy – forums, blogs, wiki’s  No paid staff to manage and do not recommend  Paid staff only create/establish endorse policies/FAQ/Guidelines. Act as ‘shepherd’

Strategies for crowdsourcing Tip 1. Clear and big goal - homepage

Tip 2. Progress towards goal

Tip 3. Quick, reliable

Tip 4. Easy and Fun

Tip 5. Make results/outcome visible

Tip 6. Rewards and acknowledgements

Tip 7. Content or thing must be interesting Tip 8. Give volunteers options to be visible Tip 9. Give volunteers an online team environment e.g. wiki, forum Tip 10. Give volunteers choices Tip 11. Assume it will be done well Tip 12. Keep the site alive - new content Tip 13. Take advantage of topical events Tip 14. Listen to your ‘super’ volunteers carefully

Do not fret….  Abuse or disinterest? NO- Loyal and responsible  Data corrupted? NO. Keep in layers, keep separate, only integrated together for public view NO. Data is enhanced and value added.  Loss of control? NO. Volunteers want guidance/co-ordination  Loss of power? NO. Gate keepers open as well as close doors!

The potential for archives  Hundreds of thousands/millions of volunteers if publicized  Archives have lots of data  Could really open up access to archives, and improve content on mass scale.  A global pool of volunteers and projects

Further Reading:  Anderson, Michael (2009) Four crowdsourcing lessons from the Guardian’s (spectacular) expenses-scandal experiment. June guardians-spectacular-expenses-scandal-experiment/ guardians-spectacular-expenses-scandal-experiment/  Holley, Rose (2009) Crowdsourcing and social engagement: Potential, Power and Freedom for Libraries and Users. Research Paper. Nov  Malone, Erin (2010) 5 steps to building social experiences. August building?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=F eed%3A+BoxesAndArrows_Stories+%28Boxes+and+Arrows%29. building?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=F eed%3A+BoxesAndArrows_Stories+%28Boxes+and+Arrows%29 10 November 2010, Rose Holley