Boot B Unlimited Creativity Crowdsourcing Experience 2010 01 20
Crowdsourcing 2010 05_05
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http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ Crowdsourcing An overview Alun Edwards Learning Technologies Group, University of Oxford
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by Alun Edwardshttp://projects.oucs.ox.ac.uk/runcoco/events/5May/Crowdsourcing_2010_05_05.pdf
Transcript of Crowdsourcing 2010 05_05
http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/
CrowdsourcingAn overview
Alun EdwardsLearning Technologies Group, University of Oxford
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Jeff Howe coined the word 'Crowdsourcing' in a 2006 article for "Wired" magazine to describe the way in which the Internet has broken down traditional employer/employee relationships to create vibrant new enterprises that are 'staffed' by informal, often large gatherings of enthusiasts. The general public has been participating in academic work for generations. They have been actively studied, researched and dissected as individuals and communities by all manner of disciplines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC96-T_QEsI
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Thrill lab film: wake you up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC96-T_QEsI
The general public has been participating in academic work for generations
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They have been actively studied, researched and dissected as individuals and communities by all manner of disciplines.
http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/
http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/
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The general public has been participating in academic work for generations. They have been actively studied, researched and dissected as individuals and communities by all manner of disciplines.
Universities are increasing investment in their surrounding communities
HEFCE Strategic Plan 2006–2011, programmes to support the public engagement agenda.
• The Beacons for Public Engagement• JISC Business & Community Engagement
• E.g. MMU “looking over the wall”
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However, over the last few decades there has been a movement by universities to increase investment in their surrounding communities and build better relationships with the public. Both higher and further education institutions have seen policy commitment at a national level through the HEFCE Strategic Plan 2006–2011, with programmes instigated to support the public engagement agenda.
http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/so-you-want-to-be-a-scientist/
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Communities involved in research Locals MMU dragon’s den Beacons for public engagement Material World However, over the last few decades there has been a movement by universities to increase investment in their surrounding communities and build better relationships with the public. Both higher and further education institutions have seen policy commitment at a national level through the HEFCE Strategic Plan 2006–2011, with programmes instigated to support the public engagement agenda. Manchester Metropolitan University case studies Simon was followed by Sarah O’Donnell, head of corporate development at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), who explored some of the benefits, challenges and opportunities involved in public engagement, focusing on three projects run by MMU. She told us that MMU sits in the middle of a deprived part of Manchester, and that community engagement is central to the university’s mission. Benefits of public engagement * civic responsibility * opening up of spaces for communication * being open to influence Sarah made the point that the benefit of social media in public engagement was very significant, as it increases the possibility of new voices and ideas being heard. MMU is part of the Beacons for Public Engagement partnership – it’s a £9.2m public engagement project that focuses on how you change the culture in your institution to reward academics who want to take part in this kind of work. Manchester’s focus (and this includes Salford University and Manchester University, as well as MMU) is listening to its community. They took the stance of not defining who their community was. What are the challenges? * doing things differently – needs to be a two-way exchange of knowledge * changing the culture of HE, and opening locked spaces * embedding HE in the community The projects MMU decided to use new methodologies, particularly in their Mapping Creativity project to map Manchester. Using social media networks (blogging/twittering etc) it sent out message to everyone to ask: what are your ideas? A £25,000 prize was on offer to deliver their project, with academics working alongside. A simple criteria (250 words and an image) lowered barriers to entry. A ‘Dragons’ Den’ style competition was held where 12 finalists pitched their ideas, and the winning project is now up and running, led by a community group. MMU has also built a MMU community website, with the concept of “looking over the wall”, and asking “what on earth goes on there?”. It’s hoped that the new campus which MMU is building will be a big feature of the community website. MMU’s third project used X-factor methodology, to choose a community project. They held a competition for six ‘public engagement fellows’ who would each get £10,000 to take forward a project – but only if the project was developed with the community. People sent ideas in, and it was put to a public vote on their website. Sarah concluded with some important lessons: * Don’t hang your social media jacket up on a peg when you come in to work! * Social media techniques are important!
Commons
WikipediaWikimedia CommonsFlickr CommonsFlickr
http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/
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Community doing stuff aside from the university: Wikipedia Projects
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Flickr commons
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Flickr, Saxon hoard, fund-raising
Singapore- no camera by daniellih on Flickr licensed under Creative Commons
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museum’s collections and gallery exhibits have been photographed by visitors (against the traditional gallery rules) and uploaded, and museums’ own feeds borrowed and remixed. Whilst educational projects for schools, fundraising activities and shared facilities have been regarded highly as a means to share information, good practice and invest in surrounding communities, inviting the general public to contribute to academic work itself is a relatively new field. This form of collaboration ultimately means the disruption of daily academic work and how meaning is ascribed to it. The voice of the academic researcher becomes lost as it is merged into a sea of others.
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lithttp://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/who_am_i_intro.aspx
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lithttp://www.flickr.com/groups/couplingup/
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Here we have groups exploring museums as social spaces, for example, Museums at Night and Museum Watchers. Other groups reunite collections or support new (or counter-hegemonic) narratives, for example transferring the Benin Bronzes of the British Museum into a symbol of modern Nigerian culture. More simply, Flickr lets lovers of Women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, dogs in art and the curious bring together collections of art and objects. In a world of tagging and Creative Commons, ownership of the images as well as control of the way exhibits, collections and artefacts are represented, is questioned and the role of the institution (and the professional status of curators) is challenged.
Universities using the public’s technology to crowdsourceresearch• Screensaver Project
• (Oxford University with the National Foundation for Cancer Research)
• SETI • (Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence)
• Quake-Catcher Network• Turn your laptop into a seismic
sensor (QCNLive)
Uni’s use public’s technology to crowdsource
research:
http://qcn.stanford.edu/
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Quake-Catcher Network Turn your laptop into a seismic sensor (QCNLive) QCNLive is interactive software developed at Stanford University for hands-on education about Earthquake Seismology. There are several modules within QCNLive for learning about earthquake vibrations and where earthquakes occur. the Screensaver Project finally came to a close. The project, developed with the National Foundation for Cancer Research has run for six years and has at various times been funded by Intel, Microsoft and by IBM, but was chiefly a collaboration with United Devices Inc of Austin Texas. It has been an enormous success, involving over 3.5 million personal computers in more than 200 countries. Only the SETI [Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence] project has had more participants, but none has involved as much data transmission as this research.
Universities using the public’s enthusiasm and their knowledge to crowdsourceresearch• National History Museum cherry
tree blossom
Uni use public and their knowledge to crowdsource
research:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/british-natural-history/tree-survey/index.html
Presenter
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National History Museum cherry tree blossom
Experts setting-up wikis and blogs for users to contribute to
• Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)• WikiMentalHealth• Crime and Justice Students • Personality Rights Database • Science of Ghosts blog
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Presentation Notes
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) (managed by a partnership of natural history institutions in the United States) WikiMentalHealth (set-up by a solicitor specialising in mental health law) Crime and Justice Students (Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and the European Society of Criminology ) Personality Rights Database (the AHRC Research Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law, the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh) Dr. Caroline Watt of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit, University of Edinburgh runs an online course to introduce interested members of the public to her discipline. She points to interactive experiments, using blogs, embedded YouTube videos and Twitter, which enable assessments of psychological experiences. She helped set up the Science of Ghosts blog for the 2009 Edinburgh Science Festival, a project which won particular notice and publicity. Richard Wiseman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, ran the blog and asked people to submit photographs of ghosts. His team received some 250 photographs from all over the world. Wiseman posted the best of these online and asked people to vote and comment on whether or not they thought the pictures were of real ghosts. None of the photographs proved the existence of ghosts, but the blog received thousands of comments and over a quarter of a million votes. WikiMentalhealth nt Calendar – WikiMentalHealth Posted on December 19th, 2009 by HMemess A user-generated resource on mental health law in England and Wales aimed at mental health practitioners such as lawyers, doctors, social workers and nurses is the subject of this online Advent Calendar post from Intute. WikiMentalHealth was set up by Jonathan Wilson, a solicitor specialising in mental health law, but it is set up so that users can contribute to and edit content once they have registered on the site. The wiki is divided into three main sections: Case law; Legislation and General information. Mental health law cases are provided with a summary and a link to the full judgement on the legal database Bailii (where available). The Legislation section provides guidance on three key pieces of mental health legislation: the Mental Health Act 2007; the Mental Health Act 1983 and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The General section has links to legal resources, articles and a glossary of abbreviations. WikiMentalHealth WikiMentalHealth Given the very formal nature of the information available through this site it is perhaps an unusual ‘Web 2.0′ candidate and indeed many web users looking for primary legal materials will often be put off using wikis or other sites with user generated content in case the information is inaccurate. The WikiMentalHealth ensures reliability by not allowing the legislation pages to be edited. The information is taken from the Statute Law Database and from OPSI (Office of Public Sector Information) or is provided via a link to these databases. Case reports on the site include links to the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) website, the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting (ICLR) website or to the full written judgement on Bailii. However users can edit or add pages to the other sections, contribute links or write articles. Most pages of the wiki have an associated ‘discussion’ page where users can post comments and questions. Alternatively, users can leave feedback in the Suggestion box. * Others Law sites with user generated content that may be of interest include Crime and Justice Students produced by students at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and the European Society of Criminology where students studying crime and justice subjects can share information and discuss topics of interest. * Another is the Personality Rights Database a user-edited wiki produced by the AHRC Research Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law based in the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh. This wiki has legal information on the protection of personality in a range of jurisdictions. The way the Encyclopedia of Life harnesses all levels of expertise to accomplish a vast global project, launched in May 2007 with the ultimate aim of creating a page for every known species on earth, has a five year plan to generate a million species pages, to digitize a large portion of the biodiversity literature, to generate educational materials for students, schools and universities, and to use the EOL resource to learn more about the world’s biodiversity. From the beginning it was obvious that so ambitious a project could only succeed by bringing together every available source of knowledge. Whilst the EOL, its content results from collaboration with a multitude of institutions and individuals from across the world and, as the months have passed, the website has become more sophisticated in offering anyone, expert or not, the opportunity to contribute. To be successful it is absolutely imperative that the EOL maintains its reputation as an authoritative resource; to achieve comprehensive coverage of the world’s biodiversity at the expense of accuracy would be pointless. Thus the project has developed a hierarchy of contributors and a system of validation which aims to ensure that all content is in due course checked for accuracy, whilst allowing the user to distinguish between “authoritative” and “unchecked” information. Any user of the site need only register to be able to add text, or images and videos (via Flickr), but these appear on the site with a yellow background until they have been reviewed by a curator, and a visitor to the site can choose between seeing everything or only “authoritative information”. Professional scientists can provide their credentials to sign up as curators to review content relating to the group of organisms on which they work, or register as content partners to contribute an existing online database. The Help Build EOL page invites scientists, students, and teachers to contribute to the project in a variety of other ways such as adding tags to images or comments to content, or by submitting taxonomic information (a classification scheme or information on names) for a particular group. The Encyclopedia of Life has achieved a lot in its first two years. Its further development, both in number of species covered and in depth and richness of content, will depend on its continued success in encouraging users to generate content and, at least as importantly, to monitor its quality.
http://scienceofghosts.wordpress.com/
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Dr. Caroline Watt of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit, University of Edinburgh runs an online course to introduce interested members of the public to her discipline. She points to interactive experiments, using blogs, embedded YouTube videos and Twitter, which enable assessments of psychological experiences. She helped set up the Science of Ghosts blog for the 2009 Edinburgh Science Festival, a project which won particular notice and publicity. Richard Wiseman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, ran the blog and asked people to submit photographs of ghosts. His team received some 250 photographs from all over the world. Wiseman posted the best of these online and asked people to vote and comment on whether or not they thought the pictures were of real ghosts. None of the photographs proved the existence of ghosts, but the blog received thousands of comments and over a quarter of a million votes.
http://scienceofghosts.wordpress.com/
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Dr. Caroline Watt of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit, University of Edinburgh runs an online course to introduce interested members of the public to her discipline. She points to interactive experiments, using blogs, embedded YouTube videos and Twitter, which enable assessments of psychological experiences. She helped set up the Science of Ghosts blog for the 2009 Edinburgh Science Festival, a project which won particular notice and publicity. Richard Wiseman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, ran the blog and asked people to submit photographs of ghosts. His team received some 250 photographs from all over the world. Wiseman posted the best of these online and asked people to vote and comment on whether or not they thought the pictures were of real ghosts. None of the photographs proved the existence of ghosts, but the blog received thousands of comments and over a quarter of a million votes.
Learning from the Experts
True stories are not the best medicine but they are nutritious and sustaining. They feed the mind with information and the heart with hope and strength
Philip Pullman
The best teaching is taught by the patient himself
Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford (1905-1920)
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Learning from the Experts Healthtalkonline examines how people sharing their experiences (of illness, treatment choices and support) provides students with an insight into the real world of healthcare. “True stories are not the best medicine but they are nutritious and sustaining. They feed the mind with information and the heart with hope and strength”. These are the words of Philip Pullman on the home page of the award winning website Healthtalkonline founded by Ann McPherson and Andrew Herxheimer. It allows users to share in other people’s experiences of health and illness and is produced by the Health Experience Research Group at the University of Oxford. The website contains videos on over 40 different illnesses and health conditions where people talk about their experiences. They aim to cover at least 100 in the next 5-10 years. It provides a unique insight for patients and carers in the words of real people. It is equally valuable for health care professionals and none more so than those who are in training and at the beginning of their careers: ‘The best teaching is taught by the patient himself’ – Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford (1905-1920). This type of content is critically important in the curriculum and underpins the delivery of communication skills training. Healthtalkonline has introduced a new section on teaching and learning which describes collaborations with other organisations and provides examples on how to use the videos in education. Many educational institutions recognise the value of structured patient involvement in training. An interesting initiative at the University of Leeds was described in a blog post by Delia Muir. She outlined the role of the “Patient Voice Team” in communication skills at the School of Medicine. A new clinical trials section was launched on the website in June 2009 – interviewees comment on “how they were approached about taking part in a trial, their reasons for taking part or saying no, their feelings about being randomised, practical issues such as appointments, tests and monitoring, and their feelings when a trial ends”. There is also the sister site Youthhealthtalk “about young people’s real life experiences of health and lifestyle”.
• Patient Voice Team• (e.g. the School of Medicine, University of
Leeds)
• Healthtalkonline• Youthealthtalk
• (Health Experience Research Group at the University of Oxford)
Learning from the Experts
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Learning from the Experts Healthtalkonline examines how people sharing their experiences (of illness, treatment choices and support) provides students with an insight into the real world of healthcare. “True stories are not the best medicine but they are nutritious and sustaining. They feed the mind with information and the heart with hope and strength”. These are the words of Philip Pullman on the home page of the award winning website Healthtalkonline founded by Ann McPherson and Andrew Herxheimer. It allows users to share in other people’s experiences of health and illness and is produced by the Health Experience Research Group at the University of Oxford. The website contains videos on over 40 different illnesses and health conditions where people talk about their experiences. They aim to cover at least 100 in the next 5-10 years. It provides a unique insight for patients and carers in the words of real people. It is equally valuable for health care professionals and none more so than those who are in training and at the beginning of their careers: ‘The best teaching is taught by the patient himself’ – Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford (1905-1920). This type of content is critically important in the curriculum and underpins the delivery of communication skills training. Healthtalkonline has introduced a new section on teaching and learning which describes collaborations with other organisations and provides examples on how to use the videos in education. Many educational institutions recognise the value of structured patient involvement in training. An interesting initiative at the University of Leeds was described in a blog post by Delia Muir. She outlined the role of the “Patient Voice Team” in communication skills at the School of Medicine. A new clinical trials section was launched on the website in June 2009 – interviewees comment on “how they were approached about taking part in a trial, their reasons for taking part or saying no, their feelings about being randomised, practical issues such as appointments, tests and monitoring, and their feelings when a trial ends”. There is also the sister site Youthhealthtalk “about young people’s real life experiences of health and lifestyle”.
http://www.healthtalkonline.org/
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Healthtalkonline gives a voice to users of healthcare but it is anything but user-generated. The methodology for producing the content is based on qualitative research and aims to provide a full range of patients’ perspectives which are more reliable than the more uncontrolled nature of user generated content. For students in healthcare, it is critical that they use only the highest quality, evidence based resources. And patients too! And it’s even endorsed by Hugh Grant, no less: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8182800.stm “One of the big differences between this website [Healthtalkonline] and other health websites you might find on Google if you’re panicking and put in pancreatic cancer or leukaemia or something is that this one is run by top Oxford doctors and researchers. That’s why it wins all these awards. Whereas the vast majority of health websites you end up on when you Google with hypochondria in the middle of the night – and no-one knows that better than me – is they tend to be sponsored by big pharmaceutical companies – they’ve got the ads down the side and they’re just not in the same league in terms of reliability and dispassionate [advice]… I don’t think there’s any substitute for hearing first hand other patients’ …experiences of these things especially on a website that’s so carefully balanced and researched…” Hugh Grant
http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/the-edgeless-university
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Expertise thus becomes recognised as not just a staple of the academic identity, as JISC’s recent Demos report ‘The Edgeless University’ states: ‘Knowledge is no longer restricted to the boundaries of universities and higher education facilities. These institutions no longer have a monopoly on where good ideas come from, nor how information and knowledge is used. They can not control how the knowledge they create is used and where it is accessed.’ Shared knowledge, engagement of the public in academic work is of mutual benefit to the community and to the institution.
Community-contribution within academic work• BBC The People’s War, and the
History of the World• The Great War Archive• Galaxy Zoo• Museum tagging projects• Numerous digital storytelling
initiatives
Benefit for contributor and community
So finally to the GWA and RunCoCo GWA, bulletholes and benefits
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Uni’s use public’s technology/knowledge to crowdsource research:BBC People’s War BBC History of the World People’s Collection, in Wales The success of community-contribution within academic work is attested to, largely facilitated by recent developments in the world wide web and social networking technology. New flows of knowledge and data generation have been enabled, as well as providing a platform to encourage people to get involved in initiatives and allowing university–community collaborations to make rapid progress. Community contribution to academic work in the humanities has also been successful, particularly through the development of community digitisation projects. An initiative run by the JISC-funded First World War Poetry Digital Archive tapped into the potential for amateur digitisation, asking the general public to send digital surrogates of any items they held originating from the Great War such as letters, diaries, photographs, sketches and memorabilia to a purpose-built website. Combined with a series of road shows, nearly 7,000 submissions were received from the community and the resulting collection became ‘The Great War Archive’, publicly available for others to use in teaching, learning and research. Even though contributions were vetted before being included in the collection, the project put its trust in the community, collaboratively editing metadata that was historically inaccurate and leaving the voice of the contributor intact. The project boasts only one item rejection as it originated from the wrong war. By capturing the alternative literatures and silent voices of the First World War, thousands of items have been collected and preserved that otherwise would have stayed hidden away in the country’s attics and bottom drawers. The project has shown that large collections of worth can be built for relatively a fraction of the cost of other large scale digitisation projects.
http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/inyourarea/
http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/
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Digital Storytelling
Galaxy Zoo
http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/freeze_tag/start.php
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A prime example is the University of Oxford’s Galaxy Zoo project, an initiative that uses the crowd sourcing of collective intelligence from the general public to build research findings. So far over 100 million galaxies have been classified by over 200,000 volunteers, ultimately leading to new discoveries by researchers about the nature of galaxies and the universe. Galaxy Zoo firmly believes that this has led them to achieve ‘better science faster’. Members of the community may be included as named authors in published papers and are freely allowed to use all the data generated from the project in their own research.
http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/http://collections.vam.ac.uk/crowdsourcing/
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gwap V&A crop it V&A: For Search the Collections, photographs have been cropped into a square format to fit on the homepage of Search the Collections. The task is to improve those crops. Because the images are always square it may not be possible to achieve a useful crop showing the whole object, but we can make them display more interesting details so that users get the best possible experience. J Zittrain
http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/http://www.gwap.com/gwap/
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gwap V&A crop it V&A: For Search the Collections, photographs have been cropped into a square format to fit on the homepage of Search the Collections. The task is to improve those crops. Because the images are always square it may not be possible to achieve a useful crop showing the whole object, but we can make them display more interesting details so that users get the best possible experience. J Zittrain
http://futureoftheinternet.org/
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Jonanthan Z Misappropriating goodwill! 55 mins 1.10mins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnEL4aAAjgo and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw3h-rae3uo
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Jonanthan Z Misappropriating goodwill! 55 mins 1.10mins
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lithttps://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/mps-expenses
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Some lessons from the Guardian, Simon Willison: Your workers are unpaid, so make it fun, make it feel like a game e.g. the progress bar on the project’s front page, immediately giving the community a goal to share. But a video game needs more than an interface and a score. It needs a narrative - and this project offered that, too. That was what Willison discovered when, on a whim, he added the Guardian’s mugshots of each MP to their pages in the database. Participation shot up, the boring PDFs feel like a detective story. To add a competitive edge, they posted lists of the top-performing volunteers. “Any time that you’re trying to get people to give you stuff, to do stuff for you, the most important thing is that people know that what they’re doing is having an effect,” Willison said. Public attention is fickle.
Do you check volunteers’ workings?
Community-contribution should benefit:• The community• The participants / the volunteers• Research
Benefit for contributor and community
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rzlvn
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University of Birmingham archaeologist: “We’re teaching practical survey skills, training undergraduate students in archaeological techniques and at same time we try to get the local community involved in their heritage.” Invaluable involvement of the community ...also they’re really knowledgeable, they’re building up quite a background in archaeology and techniques and pretty much they can do most of the things we can do...” Tamlamh Trocair: Community archaeology http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rzlvn Kevin Colls, lecturer at University of Birmingham, digging at Horgabot, Lewis Teaching practical survey skills Training undergraduate students in archaeological techniques and at same time try to get the local community involved in their heritage Invaluable involvement of the community – ran out of buckets so volunteer went home and brought more and also they’re really knowledgeable, they’re building up quite a background in archaeology and techniques and pretty much they can do most of the things we can do, so if we’re not here they go off and do the archaeology themselves, which is fantastic.
Benefit for contributor and community
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rzlvn
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Community archaeology Local Archaeologist: wants volunteers to be involved in every stage of the dig and to use their new skills. “We’ve lots of volunteers here. We’ve a wide range of people some of whom have not been on a dig before and some of whom have been on a number of digs. Some people’s expectation of archaeology is they’re going to have a little brush and be straight in to brushing a piece of pottery. This can be hard graft. There’s a lot of physical labour involved...” Community archaeology David Strachan, Perth & Kinross Heritage Trust have been working with the community for over 5 years to dig and record this site just outside Pitlochry “the Black Spout” after a famous waterfall which is close by. As this site is on top of a hill in the middle of a forest access is difficult for heavy equipment so help is vital for lifting material. It’s Hard work. These archaeologists want volunteers to be involved in every stage of the dig and to use their new skills. Anyone can come to help. They will be digging for 3 weeks this year so they need quite a large team. “We’ve lots of volunteers here. We’ve a wide range of people some of whom have not been on a dig before and some of whom have been on a number of digs. Some people’s expectation of archaeology is they’re going to have a little brush and be straight in to brushing a piece of pottery. This can be hard graft. There’s a lot of physical labour involved and basically we have to reinstate this site once we have to leave it pretty much the way we found it so there’s a number of difficulties associated with that. Everyone is busy.
Benefit for contributor and community
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rzlvn
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Community archaeology This is a good opportunity for anyone interested in archaeology to learn professional skills. Volunteer: “The advantage about coming here is the training, so you’re confident about going to other digs...” Community archaeology Two people here are drawing part of the wall that has fallen. There are lots of stones and all must be recorded... It’s very meticulous work. This is a good opportunity for anyone interested in archaeology to learn professional skills. The advantage about coming here is the training, so you’re confident about going to other digs...”
Benefit for contributor and community
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rzlvn
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Community archaeology Local development officer: Prior to the involvement of Birmingham on the Island of Harris there had only been 200 archaeological sites recorded in Harris but after they completed the first season they had recorded 2,000 sites. And since they’ve been coming here the local community have set up an archaeological group, and have evening classes, field walking in the winter, but it’s very rare that we dig. This gives the members of the group an opportunity to dig.
Benefit for contributor and community
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rzlvn
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Community archaeology “It is good for the community to have archaeologists digging here - it also gives them an insight into what was here over the centuries. There is a lot of interest now not only of what is happening in the other islands but also in Harris.” Do you think it is good for the community to have archaeologists digging here? Yes, we’ve been very fortunate because the community are only too happy for them to dig as they know that they put everything back as they find it. It also gives them an insight into what was here over the centuries. There is a lot of interest now not only of what is happening in the other islands but also in Harris.
In building community collections, we’re also building communities themselves
• Pitfalls:• Quality of material and the quality
and validity of metadata • Less resource intensive to digitise
BUT more resource intensive in terms of marketing and engagement
• Building a community requires long-term support
Presenter
Presentation Notes
There are many pitfalls associated with community collections such as The Great War Archive. The Great War Archive initiative has provided the foundations for a critical understanding as to precisely what the benefits of such a collaboration may be, what challenges these projects will encounter, and how future efforts can benefit from such experience. These community collections could provide a cost effective means of expanding research resources. In the UK there is already considerable interest in taking this model further, and one could envisage a central national service that would allow researchers and research projects to quickly and easily set up their own community collection sites. In building community collections, however, we are also building communities themselves. If such initiatives source input from the public then serious consideration needs to be given to how such communities can be fostered and maintained, how queries and questions can be answered if projects are only to run for a limited time. It is perhaps the case that current funding models do not address the level of sustainability required for engaging the general public and need to be rethought to support longer term activity.
Many advantages to community collections:• Engaging the general public in
University projects• Releasing unseen material, providing
new avenues for research and teaching• Preserving histories that may have
been lost
• Economies of Scale• Communities can become self-
serving
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Demonstration of how to collect items which would be too expensive to locate, digitise and catalogue using traditional processes Economies of Scale: £3.50 vs. £40.00 per image Preserving image of items that are being lost Using the Web as a collection medium Tapping into public enthusiasm Offer data freely for use under accepted licences (JISC/HEFCE)
Community-contribution should benefit:• The community• The participants, contributors or
the volunteers• The institution and/or
• Research, Learning & Teaching
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Teacher workshops Community benefit Google Group Individual contributor benefit Institutional benefit End with intros from 2 films and the Sarah W.
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
