1. Crowdsourcing Strategies for Archives Rose Holley 8-12 November 2010

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. Australian Newspapers

7. User Interaction at article level

8. 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

9. FamilySearchIndexing

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

11. The Guardian MP’s Expenses

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

13. Picture Australia

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

15. Galaxy Zoo

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

17. BBC WW2 Peoples War

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

19. Distributed Proofreaders

20. 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)

21. Wikipedia

22. 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

23. Shipping in Australian waters

24. FreeUKGen

25. 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.

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

27. 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

28. Volunteer Profile – anyone/everyone Flickr: LucLeqay

29. 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

30. 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

31. 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

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

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

34. 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’

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

37. Tip 2. Progress towards goal

41. Tip 3. Quick, reliable

42. Tip 4. Easy and Fun

47. Tip 5. Make results/outcome visible

50. Tip 6. Rewards and acknowledgements

53. 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

54. 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!

55. 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

56. Further Reading:  Anderson, Michael (2009) Four crowdsourcing lessons from the Guardian’s (spectacular) expenses-scandal experiment. June 23 2009. http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/four-crowdsourcing-lessons-from-the- guardians-spectacular-expenses-scandal-experiment/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/four-crowdsourcing-lessons-from-the- guardians-spectacular-expenses-scandal-experiment/  Holley, Rose (2009) Crowdsourcing and social engagement: Potential, Power and Freedom for Libraries and Users. Research Paper. Nov 2009. http://eprints.rclis.org/17410/http://eprints.rclis.org/17410/  Malone, Erin (2010) 5 steps to building social experiences. August 2010. http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/5-steps-to- building?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=F eed%3A+BoxesAndArrows_Stories+%28Boxes+and+Arrows%29. http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/5-steps-to- building?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=F eed%3A+BoxesAndArrows_Stories+%28Boxes+and+Arrows%29 10 November 2010, Rose Holley