Crowd-sourcing, crowd-funding and the collaborative management of archaeological heritage
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Chiara Bonacchi Ins%tute of Archaeology University College London EAA 2014 Istanbul, 12 September Crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and the collabora7ve management of archaeological heritage
Transcript of Crowd-sourcing, crowd-funding and the collaborative management of archaeological heritage
Chiara Bonacchi
Ins%tute of Archaeology University College London
EAA 2014 Istanbul, 12 September
Crowd-‐sourcing, crowd-‐funding and
the collabora7ve management of archaeological heritage
Overview
• Public Archaeology perspec%ve • Crowd-‐based methods & open data
– Poten%al for collabora%ve arch. heritage management
• MicroPasts – Model, collabora%on, value
• Conclusions
A Public Archaeology perspec7ve
• Public Archaeology – “Study of the rela%onship
between archaeology and society in order to improve it” (Matsuda & Okamura 2011)
– Resul%ng from the progressive fading of the division into two ‘schools’ • ‘Northern American’ (Jameson
2004) • ‘Bri%sh’ (Schadla-‐Hall 1999,
Merriman 2004)
• Archaeological heritage management – The prac%ce of planning,
implemen%ng and evalua%ng the uses of archaeological heritage that maximise its value for society
– Balancing interests in the present/future/mul%ple parts involved
‘Crowd-‐based’ methods
• Crowd-‐sourcing – Brings together no%ons of ‘crowd’
and ‘out-‐sourcing’ – Collec%ng info, services or funds in
small amounts, from large groups over the internet
• Crowd-‐funding – Links up crowd-‐sourcing and
micro-‐financing – Form of financing ventures by
collec%ng individually small amounts of money from a crowd
Social capital “the aggregate of the actual or poten%al resources, which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less ins%tu%onalized rela%onships of mutual acquaintance and recogni%on.” Bourdieu 1986
‘Crowd-‐based’ methods in archaeology
• Crowd-‐sourcing – Primarily small groups – Contributory par%cipa%on – Modularity for repeatability of
apps has not been sought
• Crowd-‐funding – Mainly reward-‐based – Different pladorms & outcomes – No research to validate results of
general reviews of c-‐f
C-‐S and C-‐F have not been linked up
Micropasts
• Aims to develop and test an online space where communi%es of interest that are already established offline and an unknown crowd can collaborate with academics to:
-‐ produce innova%ve open datasets via crowd-‐sourcing
-‐ micro-‐fund those new collabora%ve projects via crowd-‐funding
-‐ develop new research into archaeology, history and heritage
• Micropasts.org (hhps://github.com/MicroPasts)
• Crowdsourced.micropasts.org • Builds on Pybossa framework
- Photo-‐masking - Transcrip%on & geo-‐referencing - Photo-‐tagging & geo-‐referencing
• Data page, Learning page
Community forum • Community.micropasts.org • Discourse • Co-‐design of pladorm & (in future) of research
• Crowdfunded.micropasts.org • Developed from Neighbor.ly • Community-‐led archaeological research
The MicroPasts network
• Smaller group - Primarily within personal network
of staff/ins%tu%ons involved and their networks
- Few individuals from the same offline communi%es of interest
- Few interac%ng with staff - Nobody interac%ng with other
volunteers
A Crowd is largely anonymous and flee%ngly involved, while a community is repeatedly involved, with clearer group consciousness and interconnectedness. Haythornthwaite 2009
• Larger group & emerging community - Beyond network of staff/ins%tut.
involved and their networks - Few individuals from the same
offline communi%es - More interac%ng with staff - Connec%ons emerging between
some of the volunteers
70%, N=498 Survey amer Task 1
New members
2014-04-16 2014-05-09 2014-06-12 2014-08-08 2014-09-03
010
2030
4050
Dates
Members
Launch Guardian ar%cle
Second %er
Collabora7on
0100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Dates
Tasks
2014-04-15 2014-05-19 2014-06-22 2014-07-26 2014-08-29
Launch Guardian ar%cle & more direct engagement
• Motivations – Helping
• Mus/arch/hist volunteering • In different fields
– Contributing own skills – Archaeology, history, the past – Artefacts/object features – 3D modelling – Crowd-sourcing – Fun – Relief from other applications
Volunteer mo7va7ons and preferred kinds of tasks
• Focus on 1 kind of app or 2 – Photo-masking and photo-
tagging (most frequently in pair) • [Interests in arts, photography]
– Photo-masking and transcription (sometimes in pair)
• [People with stronger interest archaeology/history research]
– Fewer do all • [People who belong to the
‘community’/respond to calls] Qual. data from Task25 survey and emails Data from platform (volunteer behaviour),
Qual. data from Task25 survey and emails
Value
• Resources – 11 applica%ons completed since
16 April 2014 (as of 8 September 2014)
– Tasks completed: 4133 transcrip%ons; 2439 on P-‐Ms
– ~15% of BM archive transcribed
• Processes – Respondents to +25tasks survey
(20): found out new info on arch/hist/collec%ons or learnt new skills (13/20); sa%sfied exis%ng interests (14); discovered new interests (4 men%oning P-‐M specifically).
– Web-‐based programming – Developing and tes%ng new
methods (for data collec%on, evalua%on, archaeological heritage management, 3D modelling, etc.)
Conclusions
• Research-‐led model of arch. heritage management & PA – Accommodates different agendas
while working towards shared research goals
– Balances out • Academic and non-‐academic
interests • conserva%on and interpreta%on
– Acknowledges impact of volunteer mo%va%on & behaviour on research outputs
• Challenges
– Time needed to produce data can be a disincen%ve (difficult to show research u%lity)
– Time needed to develop and consolidate a network and a community vs. funded %me
– Ins%tu%onal framework – Adap%ng evalua%on methodology
in response to par%cipant behaviour/preferences
Thank you!
Acknowledgements: Thanks to my colleagues on the MicroPasts project: Andrew Bevan, Daniel Peh, Adi Keinan-‐Schoonbaert,
Rachael Sparks, Neil Wilkin, Jennifer Wexler
