How to run a community collection

onlineAlun Edwards, University of Oxford:

RunCoCo

Matchbox submitted to The Great War Archive

This item is from The Great War Archive, University of Oxford (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa); © MAUREEN ROGERS

George Cavan was a Company Sergeant Major in the Glasgow Highlanders

He lived with his family, his wife Jean and 3 daughters, in the Drill Hall in Carluke, Scotland.

While away at training camp the orders came through to dispatch to France. The train he was on with his troops went through his home station but did not stop there

Website: www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa

George threw out onto the platform a matchbox containing a note to his family

On one side: the name of his wife and on the other: his message

Someone picked up the matchbox and delivered it to the family

This item is from The Great War Archive, University of Oxford (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa); © MAUREEN ROGERS

George Cavan was killed just a few days after arriving at the front in France on the 13th April, 1918. He lies in an unmarked grave but is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial.

Website: www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa

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Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est”

• Draft Versions of the text

gargling gurgling goggling “guttering”

There is a biography for each poet• an explanation of the collections

• links to specific poems

• or other material like letters or photos

Search results• See versions of texts

• Text as included in letters etc.

• Full text as published

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View photo or metadata• Zoomify, download

• Share in social media

• AND add to favourites

Add to favourites• Compare favourites

Compare versions of texts on screen, side-by-side

• Imagine that in the context of a reading room!

To Jessie Pope etc. “To a certain Poetess”

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Image from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit); © Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum / The Isaac Rosenberg Literary Estate

Isaac Rosenberg, “Daughter's of War”

• Trench poems, written on whatever scraps of paper he could find

• The torn and mud-stained manuscript reveals the conditions of the soldier’s service

Videos on YouTube, incl. show-reel www.youtube.com/user/ww1lit

The Great War Archive

In 2008 the University of Oxford used the general public to build on a freely-available, online archive of the manuscripts of many of the British poets from the First World War

They contributed to a community collection

Website: www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa

Funded by JISC (for 4 months only), so now we use Flickr to receive contributions.

2008: Simple online submissions process

Contributors asked to agree to basic terms & conditions of the license

Contributors enter basic metadata

Offered a large open ‘notes’ field for further information or anecdotes

An admin system allowed reviewers to: check items for their validity; correct or add to the metadata; flag items of particular interest/value

Website: www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa

Offer on the spot digitisation and advice

A ‘Submissions Day Pack’ guided libraries etc. to run their own day

2008: The project collaborated with organisations

‘Roadshows’/submissions days

EMMA

Website: www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa

EMMA

Photo submitted by the nephew of the William Gaunt, (seated here)Nothing particularly unusual in this photo – which had been on the mantle-piece in William’s widow’s house?

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Live website

Public interface toThe Great War Archive, with options for download, ‘zoomify’ etc

Live website

An admin system for reviewers

To check items for their validity.

To correct or add to the metadata

To flag items of particular interest / value

RSS

Wiki

Mindmaps

Blogs

Getting Your Message OutThere

Our projects have used all of these “Web 2.0”, third-party services, to engage with communities and work with user-generated content

Blogging

www.flickr.com/groups/greatwararchive/

The Great War Archive Exit Strategy

Although the submission process ended in June 2008 the project has used Flickr to allow further items to be contributed.

We could assess potential for user tagging / comments.

Flickr: No formal submission/metadata

A future project might enhance metadata?

Comments can be facile or funny and can sometimes be incredibly informative

1917-reservists called up and prepared1917-временно мобилизирани Българи

Flickr image from The Great War Archive Flickr Group by allilinin www.flickr.com/photos/allilinin/63081204/

Public contributors uploaded 3,500 digital objects to website in 4 months

The project uploaded 600 items (about 3,000 digital objects) from 5 submissions days

Public contributions to The Great War Archive

Over 6,500 items collected March-June 2008, 60% submitted by the public direct through our website

Website: www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa

2,750

3,500

600

A Flickr group continues to collect items

Costs per item:

First World War Poetry Digital Archive cost £40.00 / item

The Great War Archive cost £3.50 / item

http://glamwiki.org

YouTube, iTunesU, Flickr and Wikimedia Commons etc.

www.flickr.com/groups/greatwararchive/

Share culture?Share your knowledge, engage with the audience with comments and conversation

Share your collections use a Creative Commons

licence

e.g. Old Weather

Part of the Citizen Science Alliance which includes a number of

Zooniverse projects

such as Galaxy Zoo, Moon Zoo, Solar Storm Watch

These transcriptions will contribute to climate model projections and improve a database of weather extremes. Historians will use your work to track past ship movements and the stories of the people on board.

www.oldweather.org/

Help scientists recover worldwide weather observations made by Royal Navy ships around the time of World War I

Crowdsource?JISC rapid innovation projects: developing community content, 2010

For Culturenet Cymru (National Library of Wales) “heritage is the hook” for digital inclusion

The People’s Collection, and other initiatives in Wales like:

“E-include”?

www.culturenetcymru.com/

“Kontaktanzeigen”

“Mirth in Wartime (c.1918)”, Flickr image from The Great War Archive Flickr Group by postaletrice www.flickr.com/photos/postaletrice/4382411053/

Treue Humor

Alkohol-und-Tabakkonsum

Spontaneität

Alles was Spaß

macht!

Sportlich unternehmungslustig

Ich mag

Ehrlichkeit

Europeana, the DNB and the University of Oxford are looking for partners to help run The Great War Archive in Germany and beyond...

“Wir suchen...”

• The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, & The Great War Archive & and links to Frideswide on Second Life, and the Flickr photo pool www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit

• YouTube WW1Lit channel www.youtube.com/user/ww1lit

• If You Build It, They Will Scan: Oxford University’s Exploration of Community Collections, Dr Stuart Lee and Kate Lindsay. EDUCAUSE Quarterly Vol 32 Number 2, 2009 www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EQVolume322009/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/174539 The strategies and processes behind The Great War Archive are explained in detail. E.g. comparison of the costs per item: £40.00/item Poetry Digital Archive £ 3.50/item The Great War Archive

• RunCoCo: How to run a community collection online, JISC-funded project based at the University of Oxford. http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ Offering training, support, networking. fostering an online community of interest. Disseminating key software tools, methodologies, and work-flows developed under The Great War Archive and beyond. Developing an open source system (called CoCoCo) to collect digital objects.

Further reading 1

• Old Weather, www.oldweather.org/ One of the JISC-funded rapid innovation projects: developing community content, 2010 - Part of the Citizen Science Alliance which includes a number of Zooniverse projects such as Galaxy Zoo, Moon Zoo, Solar Storm Watch. “These transcriptions will contribute to climate model projections and improve a database of weather extremes. Historians will use your work to track past ship movements and the stories of the people on board.”

• Digitisation, curation & two-way engagement, Chris Batt Consulting www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2009/digicurationfinalreport.aspx The Great War Archive showed how community collections can work and bring great benefits, most notably reduced costs... This is possibly a model we should be pursuing in the future alongside traditional high-quality digitisation... Moreover, that academia should try to engage the public in its research and recognise that the public not only may hold material, but also is willing to engage in these activities. On the subject of Two-way Engagement: “…knowledge co-creation and exchange rather than simple knowledge transfer; a dialogue which enriches knowledge for mutual benefit” and “...community engagement is more than citizen participation… it would be questionable to describe it as community engagement, unless there have been some fully open opportunities for... Collective involvement in the agenda under discussion.”

• Capturing the power of the crowd and the challenges of community collections, JISC 2010 www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/programmerelated/2010/communitycollections.aspx ‘Crowdsourcing’ is when a problem is broadcast to a wide audience or community that could solve the problem collectively. Mundane tasks could be outsourced to a motivated and enthusiastic community of experts. The community can assess the answers and provide the quality assurance. Refers to e.g. East London Lives 2012, GalaxyZoo and RunCoCo.

• The Participatory Museum, Nina Simon www.participatorymuseum.org/ e.g. The stages of social participation online

Further reading 2

RunCoCo: How to run a community collection online Contact

RunCoCo

Alun Edwards

OUCS

University of Oxford

runcoco@oucs.ox.ac.uk

http://runcoco.oucs.ox.ac.uk RunCoCo offering training, support, networking, e.g.

Two-way engagement on Twitter: @runcoco

Sharing links to other relevant resources and exemplar crowdsourcing initiatives using Delicious

Maintaining momentum with the blog Disseminating key software tools,

methodologies, and work-flows developed under The Great War Archive and beyond. Developing an open source system (called CoCoCo) to collect digital objects

These items are from The Great War Archive, University of Oxford (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit); ©

Any questions?