ABSTRACT

Crowdsourcing in cultural heritage involves asking the public to help with tasks that contribute to a shared, significant goal or research interest related to cultural heritage collections or knowledge. Unlike commercial crowdsourcing platforms such as Mechanical Turk, participants receive no financial reward, so the activities and/or goals should be inherently rewarding for participating volunteers. This chapter will help cultural heritage practitioners and researchers plan and design enjoyable crowdsourcing interfaces with tasks that make a contribution to a meaningful wider outcome.

The chapter will introduce key principles and best practices in project and interface design through an overview of exemplar crowdsourcing projects. It will outline the key stages in crowdsourcing projects, typical tasks and project typologies. Based on the author's extensive practical experience and theoretical engagement, it will discuss topics including: deciding on appropriate measures of success for evaluating a GLAM crowdsourcing project; finding the right balance between design for productivity and design for engagement; validating and integrating the results of crowdsourced tasks into core collections systems; motivating organisations and volunteers to participate; and understanding the organisational and personal impact of crowdsourcing.