CROWDSOURCING HISTORY

The HeritageCrowd Project

Guy Massie,Nadine Feuerherm

Shawn GrahamDepartment of History,

Carleton University

Crowdsourcing, eh?

Harrison & His Clocks http://www.nmm.ac.uk/harrison

Examples from Science

Examples from Museums

Examples from History

And sometimes, given a space, it self-organizes... Myth of the Black Confederate

SoldierBlogosphere vs. Ancestry.com○ (Leslie Madsen-Brooks, “‘I nevertheless

am a historian”: Digital Historical Practice and Malpractice around Black Confederate Soldiers” Writing History in the Digital Age – going live tomorrow!

Who is the Crowd?

Depends on the projectWikipedia:○ 87% Men, 13% women○ 23% with degrees○ 26% are undergrads○ 45% secondary level or less(survey of 58 000 self selected

‘wikipedians’, UNU, Collaborative Creativity Group http://www.wikipediastudy.org/)

Our Crowd: Pontiac & Renfrew Counties

Why Digitally Crowdsourced History?

Why Digitally Crowdsourced History? An outlet for those who wish to

share historical narratives

Why Digitally Crowdsourced History? An outlet for those who wish to

share historical narratives Collecting an abundance of

perspectives, or the aesthetics of the cracked mirror

Why Digitally Crowdsourced History? An outlet for those who wish to

share historical narratives Collecting an abundance of

perspectives, or the aesthetics of the cracked mirror

Local community consciousness

So what is HeritageCrowd then?

Ushahidi.com Omeka.com

Ushahidi

Omeka

Our ‘ideal’ data flow

SMS image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SMS_test.jpgTelephone operator, By Deasington, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Telephone_girl.JPG

Results from HeritageCrowd Summer Phase

Number of daily submissions received over time

Results from HeritageCrowd Summer Phase

Submissions by type

SMSVoicemailE-mailWebform

Some Interesting Stories...

Deschenes

The medium & the message

Technology and the appearance of authority

What would we have done differently?

Train wreck at Montparnasse Station, at Place de Rennes side (now Place du 18 Juin 1940), Paris, France, 1895. Studio Lévy and Sons (Studio Lévy & fils)

What would we have done differently? “Retroactive crowdsourcing”

What would we have done differently? “Retroactive crowdsourcing” “Gamification” of digitally

crowdsourced work

What would we have done differently? “Retroactive crowdsourcing” “Gamification” of digitally

crowdsourced work Procedural Rhetorics of the

Software

Relinquishing Control of the Historical Voice

Source for this photo? It exists in multiple copies online... See http://j.mp/oumey5

Relinquishing Control of the Historical Voice Conventional role of the historian:

constructor of historical narratives

Relinquishing Control of the Historical Voice Conventional role of the historian:

constructor of historical narrativesUses sources to interpret the past, but

interpretation is in the hands of the historian

Relinquishing Control of the Historical Voice Conventional role of the historian:

constructor of historical narrativesUses sources to interpret the past, but

interpretation is in the hands of the historian

Social authority of the historian: institutionally trained, professional credentials

Relinquishing Control of the Historical Voice With the crowdsourcing of history,

we are asking people from the public to define their sense of history and heritage

Relinquishing Control of the Historical Voice With the crowdsourcing of history,

we are asking people from the public to define their sense of history and heritage“Every person their own historian”

Relinquishing Control of the Historical Voice With the crowdsourcing of history,

we are asking people from the public to define their sense of history and heritage“Every person their own historian”The democratization of history?

In a nutshell:

Choose your base platform carefully, thinking through the technological and epistemological implications

Collect what already exists.

Seed your site with this material so you can identify the gaps.

Image: Termininga, Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Almond_nut.jpg

Narrow your target when communicating with the public: get them to fill the holes.

Make sure to design for engagement.

Building your crowd is key: put initial resources into publicity.

Have an “elevator pitch”. Make sure that the project can be

described completely in 30 seconds or less.

Build your outreach and social media strategy around getting that pitch in front of as many eyes in your target crowd as possible.

Whither HeritageCrowd?

Platform for outreach & communication

Environment for teaching & training of students (especially in HIST2809)

Thank You

CUAG FASS Jr. Research Fellowship, 2011 History Department Communities of the Ottawa Valley