Communities & Crowds: Expanding Volunteer Programs Across Physical and Digital Spaces for Cultural Institutions
Lead Research Organisation:
Science Museum Group
Department Name: National Media Museum Research
Abstract
The 'Communities & Crowds' project offers a new model for Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum (GLAM) institutions to engage more deeply with their audiences through their collections, both in-person and online. The goal of the project is ultimately to break down barriers, and engage new volunteer communities to interrogate and make visible heritage collections in collaboration with institutional structures. By combining participatory and citizen science methodologies throughout this project, the outcomes of this experimental program will have impact for both museum practice and concepts of digital-enabled participation.
In cultural heritage organizations across the UK and US, volunteers are a critical part of institutional infrastructure. Volunteer labor is ubiquitous, spanning disciplines from art museums to planetaria. Within cultural organizations, volunteers interact with visitors, work with collections, and provide administrative support, among myriad other tasks that vary across institutions. Volunteers help to ensure that institutions run smoothly, even when budget limitations prevent the hiring of additional staff. At the same time, volunteers personally benefit from their association with museums, either due to interest in the content of collections, a feeling of 'giving back' to one's community, opportunities for socialization, or career-oriented learning and experience-building.
As cultural institutions increasingly make use of digital technology to engage audiences, the need for volunteers has arisen in those spaces as well. However, digital volunteer opportunities often focus on volunteers as audiences, rather than as an essential part of the institutional team. One example of attracting digital volunteers to heritage institutions is through online crowdsourcing projects. Crowdsourcing is a form of digitally-enabled participation which invites volunteers to engage with institutional collections by performing meaningful tasks. It is often viewed as a way to simultaneously encourage public engagement with heritage materials, while completing essential institutional data processing tasks that can result in making collections searchable and discoverable by a wider range of audiences. However, most crowdsourcing projects are created 'offline' and only shared with online volunteers once the project's aims and research questions are fully formed. In this way, digital volunteers are assigned the role of 'users' or 'audience', rather than as co-creators or collaborators.
In the 'Communities & Crowds' project we aim to re-examine the role of the volunteer in the physical and digital realms, with the ultimate goal of breaking down hierarchical barriers and providing a roadmap for teaching cultural institutions to use online engagement as a model for interacting with both digital and in-person volunteers as collaborators with institutional staff. In particular, we will focus on how this practice can be realized through the process of online crowdsourcing, using the Zooniverse platform as a case study. This collaborative effort will include researchers, curators, educational and volunteer teams at the National Science and Media Museum (Bradford, UK), the Zooniverse teams at the Adler Planetarium (Chicago, IL) and Oxford University (Oxford, UK), and online volunteers around the world.
In cultural heritage organizations across the UK and US, volunteers are a critical part of institutional infrastructure. Volunteer labor is ubiquitous, spanning disciplines from art museums to planetaria. Within cultural organizations, volunteers interact with visitors, work with collections, and provide administrative support, among myriad other tasks that vary across institutions. Volunteers help to ensure that institutions run smoothly, even when budget limitations prevent the hiring of additional staff. At the same time, volunteers personally benefit from their association with museums, either due to interest in the content of collections, a feeling of 'giving back' to one's community, opportunities for socialization, or career-oriented learning and experience-building.
As cultural institutions increasingly make use of digital technology to engage audiences, the need for volunteers has arisen in those spaces as well. However, digital volunteer opportunities often focus on volunteers as audiences, rather than as an essential part of the institutional team. One example of attracting digital volunteers to heritage institutions is through online crowdsourcing projects. Crowdsourcing is a form of digitally-enabled participation which invites volunteers to engage with institutional collections by performing meaningful tasks. It is often viewed as a way to simultaneously encourage public engagement with heritage materials, while completing essential institutional data processing tasks that can result in making collections searchable and discoverable by a wider range of audiences. However, most crowdsourcing projects are created 'offline' and only shared with online volunteers once the project's aims and research questions are fully formed. In this way, digital volunteers are assigned the role of 'users' or 'audience', rather than as co-creators or collaborators.
In the 'Communities & Crowds' project we aim to re-examine the role of the volunteer in the physical and digital realms, with the ultimate goal of breaking down hierarchical barriers and providing a roadmap for teaching cultural institutions to use online engagement as a model for interacting with both digital and in-person volunteers as collaborators with institutional staff. In particular, we will focus on how this practice can be realized through the process of online crowdsourcing, using the Zooniverse platform as a case study. This collaborative effort will include researchers, curators, educational and volunteer teams at the National Science and Media Museum (Bradford, UK), the Zooniverse teams at the Adler Planetarium (Chicago, IL) and Oxford University (Oxford, UK), and online volunteers around the world.
Organisations
| Description | New streamlined workflow for volunteer-led digitization of archival photographs |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or Improved professional practice |
| Title | Daily Herald Photographic Archive - African-Caribbean Heritage |
| Description | Set of data pertaining to the IP rights, condition, type and content of over 200 photographs selected from the Daily Herald Archive with relevance to African-Caribbean heritage. This data will be linked to the digitized images and fleshed out through a research project on the online citizen science platform, Zooniverse. Following this process it will be made available to others via SMG's One Collection online pages. |
| Type Of Material | Data handling & control |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Increased engagement with the collections: Volunteer researchers have engaged with the material through the inventorying process and gained new knowledge and skills. The expected impact will be to make these important images and their accompanying captions publicly available and visible to a wider audience. |
| Title | Community Catalogue |
| Description | The Community Catalogue is an open source web application used in conjunction with Zooniverse crowdsourcing projects. It allows users to explore Zooniverse datasets based on a combination of institutional metadata and Zooniverse volunteer-generated metadata produced through the Talk board (including the QuickTalk feature also produced through this grant). As of March 2023, the Community Catalogue is in the development phase, and will undergo additional rounds of testing and revision before launching fully. |
| Type Of Technology | New/Improved Technique/Technology |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | n/a (yet) |
| URL | https://github.com/zooniverse |
| Title | Zooniverse QuickTalk feature |
| Description | The QuickTalk feature is an experimental technology which incorporates the 'Talk' message boards into the classification user interface for Zooniverse online crowdsourcing projects. When this feature is enabled, volunteers can view and post messages on a subject-specific Talk thread while classifying on that particular subject. QuickTalk is currently behind a feature flag on a project's Admin page, meaning a Zooniverse administrator has to turn it on for any given project. |
| Type Of Technology | New/Improved Technique/Technology |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | Before this feature was built, volunteers were not able to post on subject-specific boards until after they had classified on a subject (via the "Done & Talk" button in the classification interface). This feature allows volunteers to add 'Notes' to a given subject, for example adding relevant information about a subject or justification for transcribing difficult words in a certain way, etc. As of March 2023, QuickTalk has been tested on a live project, and slight edits were made to the tech based on feedback from project volunteers/testers. The feedback gathered during this experiment will be used as part of the published research output of this grant. QuickTalk is also being incorporated into the "Community Catalogue" -- another technical output of this grant. |
| URL | https://github.com/zooniverse |
| Description | "Bussing Out" Visit with Volunteers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The project volunteers were able to visit "Bussing Out", an art installation at the University of Bradford based on the bussing out scheme involving South Asian, West Indian, and African migrant children during the 1960's and 1970's in the UK. Volunteers were also given the opportunity to engage with the installation artist, Shabina Aslam, who had also previously worked with the Daily Herald Archive. The visit provided the volunteers with further inspiration for their work on the Communities & Crowds project, particularly for determining their goals and research questions for the next phase on Zooniverse. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Althea McNish Exhibition Visit with Volunteers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The project volunteers were able to visit the Whitworth Art Gallery and get a guided private tour of the recent Althea McNish exhibition, "Colour is Mine". This visit provide volunteers with the opportunity to further explore the African-Caribbean history of Britain, and inspired discussions regarding the wider impact of the Communities & Crowds project, including potential activities and events involving the local community. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Audience Development Focus Groups |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Two focus groups have been held with the project volunteers and led by audience researchers from the Science Museum Group in 2021 and 2023. These sessions have been useful in providing further insight into the motivations behind the volunteers' participation in the project and their experiences so far. Information gained from these sessions have been incorporated in future planning for the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2023 |
| Description | Black History Month Event - AFRICAN CARIBBEAN HISTORY IN THE DAILY HERALD ARCHIVE |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Volunteers from the project led on the organisation of an event for Black History Month at the National Science and Media Museum. They curated a selection of materials related to African Caribbean history that they had previously digitised from the Daily Herald Archive as part of their participation in the Communities & Crowds project. These archival materials were displayed for visitors, who were able to not only engage with them, but also with the volunteers. Feedback from the event was positive from both volunteers and guests, with some interest from the latter in participating as a digital volunteer on the upcoming Zooniverse platform. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/what-was-on/african-caribbean-history-daily-herald-archive |
| Description | Bradford African-Caribbean Heritage Network |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | As part of our plan to recruit volunteers and to engage local communities we worked with Bradford Museums & Galleries to set up a working group or network for anyone involved or interested in heritage projects connected to the African-Caribbean community in Bradford. We have had four meetings so far and have established the terms of reference for the network. There are several interconnected projects happening in Bradford at the moment focused on capturing and preserving the stories and heritage of local African-Caribbean people. This network has been established to make sure the different projects can support and learn from each other. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| Description | FROM THE ARCHIVES TO THE INTERNET: UPDATES FROM THE COMMUNITIES & CROWDS PROJECT - BLOG POST |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The blog post was written by Dr Alexandra Fitzpatrick (Co-I) to update the general public on recent work undertaken as part of the Communities and Crowds project, including recent engagement events and digitisation sessions. It was also used to promote the next phase of the project (the launch of the Zooniverse platform) and signposted readers on where to look for future updates on how to participate as a digital volunteer. Since publication, I have received some messages requesting further information regarding this upcoming project phase. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/communities-crowds-project-update/ |
| Description | Introductory Sessions - Communities and Crowds |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We ran two introductory sessions for members of local communities who had expressed an interest in participating in the Communities and Crowds project. This included an into to the project, an intro to volunteering with SMG (led by Gin Jacobucci - Volunteer coordinator) an introduction and tour of the Insight Archive and the Daily Herald Newspaper Photography Archive. It also included an introduction to Zooniverse from Co-I Samantha Blickhan. All of the participants found the sessions interesting and informative. As a result four people signed up to volunteer on the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | OPENING UP THE DAILY HERALD ARCHIVE TO CITIZEN-LED RESEARCH - BLOG POST |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The blog post was written by Dr Lynn Wray (Co-I) to explain the aims and purpose of the project and to act as an open call to participate. It was used to engage and signpost local groups to during a point of the pandemic where it was difficult to meet with groups face-to-face. We received requests for further information following the blog post and I had several follow up phone conversations and meetings with groups and members of the public that were interested in participating. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/opening-up-the-daily-herald-archive-to-citizen-led-researc... |
| Description | Presentation 'A New Approach to Volunteer Led Digitization' at the Association of Historical and Fine Art Photography Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | As part of the Association of Historical and Fine Art Photography Conference, which is a professional conference for photographers and GLAM professionals who work with historical collections in the UK. We shared our new approach to volunteer led digitization, and shared the potential impact this might have for heritage professionals. The audience for this talk reflected a broad group of museum professionals working across the UK at National, regional and local museums - as well as commercial professionals who sell photographic equipment. Approximately 100 people were in attendance. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/86b648b2-f5ad-45d1-99b5-38af3df6ddb0/2022%20Conference%20-%20Progra... |
| Description | Presentation at HeritageDot Conference - Opening up the Archive: An Approach to Volunteer-led Citizen Science in the Museum and Online |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | As part of the HeritageDot Conference organised by the University of Lincoln, the project PI (Dr Geoff Belknap) and Co-I (Dr Alexandra Fitzpatrick) gave an online presentation on the Communities & Crowds project. Our progress to-date was summarised, with presentations of current digitisation work from our volunteers and early builds from platform development on Zooniverse. We were able to receive feedback from the audience and answered questions regarding the project and its potential application in other contexts. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://heritagedot.org/ |
| Description | Presentation at University of Bradford 'Unify' conference - "Making Museum Collections available online" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | As part of the University of Bradford 'Unify' conference, the project PI (Geoff Belknap) gave and online presentation entitled "Making Museum Collections available online". The presentation gave an overview of the Communities and Crowds project, and discussed how volunteers were leading the way in digitizing new part of the photographic collections at the National Science and Media Museum. The talk created interest from other academics and museum professionals, who asked how this method could be applied at their institutions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.bradford.ac.uk/events/public/making-museum-collections-accessible-online.php |
| Description | Presentation for DH at Oxford Summer School 'Crowdsourced Research in the Humanities' strand |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Co-PI Belknap and RA Wray gave a talk to participants in the 2022 'Crowdsourced Research in the Humanities' strand of the DH at Oxford Summer School, held at Keble College in July, which was convened by Co-PI Blickhan. Workshop participants learned about the Communities & Crowds project and the work done to date, and had a lively discussion afterward. They were particularly interested to hear more about how the C&C team worked with underrepresented and/or marginalized communities on co-creating crowdsourcing projects, and learn how their institutions could do this work in an ethical, equitable way. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Presentation of 'Challenges of a Photographic Curator' to an online seminar of the Derbyshire Archeological Society/WW Winters |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Geoff Belknap offered a 'behind the scenes' evidence of the challenges and considerations that have to be borne in mind when caring for a national collection. Describing some of the challenges faced with dealing with large photographic collections, based on his experience working with collections at the Science Museum Group and National Museums Scotland, he then offered a solution to engaging with a wider audience through photographic collection. Based on the findings of the Communities and Crowds project, the talk shared some of the initial findings on how to support volunteer led digitization to photographic collections. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.derbyshireas.org.uk/event/challenges-of-a-photographic-curator/ |
| Description | Weekly Volunteer Digitization Sessions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Since October 2021 we have run a recurring weekly session with a group of 4 volunteers. These volunteers were recruited after responding to an open call out which came to be shared with local groups and networks connected to the African-Caribbean community in Bradford. During the sessions volunteers select material from the Daily Herald Archive that they think is important to digitize, they inventory the photographs using app sheet, scan and process the photographs to correct for colour and contrast and rehouse them to archival standard. During the sessions we discuss what is of interest about the photographs, what knowledge the group bring to them from their lived experience and what more we would like to know about them, with a view to developing a citizen science project on the online platform Zooniverse. We have discussions about problematic language and sensitive images. Working together through the material and handling the objects sparks many conversations about lived experience of migration and of racism and the impact of policies impacting particularly on black people, of life in the Caribbean under colonial rule and post-colonialism, and the impact of media representation of African-Caribbean lives and heritage. The digitized photographs will be used to produce a Zooniverse project and the experience of working with the photographs and discussing them with the group will feed into the development of the research question that the Zooniverse project is framed around. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| Description | Weekly Volunteer Sessions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Sessions with the volunteer group have continued throughout 2022 and 2023. Although most sessions have been focused on continuing the digitization work that started in October 2021, there have also been sessions focused on developing the project platform that will be launched on Zooniverse. This has included workshopping sessions, "paper prototype" sessions, and general brainstorming sessions during which the volunteers have been able to propose and try out different tasks and activities that will be undertaken by digital volunteers. Through these sessions, we have been able to not only determine the most appropriate tasks for the project, but also identify the main goals and research questions that the volunteers want to focus on during this phase of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| Description | Zooniverse Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A workshop was organised by PIs (Dr Geoff Belknap and Dr Sam Blickhan) and Co-I (Dr Alex Fitzpatrick) to further develop the project platform for Zooniverse with the volunteers and placement postgraduate student in attendance. The goals for this workshop included confirmation of volunteer research questions, identification of roles for the volunteers in the development and administration of Zooniverse, and exploring desired outcomes for the end of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |