Academic Crowdsourcing in the Humanities

Mark Hedges is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London. His original academic background was in mathematics and philosophy, and he gained a PhD in mathematics at University College London, before starting a 17-year career in the software and systems consultancy industry, working on large-scale development projects for industrial and commercial clients. After a brief career break, he began his career at King’s at the Arts and Humanities Data Service, before moving to his current position, in which he has taught on a variety of modules in the MA in Digital Asset and Media Management and MA in Digital Curation. His research interests include digital curation and digital archives, their role in research, and their relationships with broader research environments and infrastructures, and since 2012 he has been carrying out research on crowdsourcing and participatory methods in the humanities. Stuart Dunn is Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities at King’s College London. He gained his PhD in Aegean Bronze Age Archaeology from the University of Durham in 2002, during which he conducted fieldwork in Melos, Crete and Santorini. During his PhD and subsequently, he developed strong interests in digital research methods for mapping and spatial analysis. He worked as Research Assistant on the AHRC’s ICT in Arts and Humanities Research Programme from 2003 until 2006, where he supported the design and implementation of key research programmes. In 2006, he became a Research Associate at the Arts and Humanities e-Science Support Centre at King’s, and then a Research Fellow in the Centre for e-Research. Since 2011, he has taught in the fields of cultural heritage, digital history and, most recently, Geographical Information Systems. In this period he has researched and published extensively on academic crowdsourcing as a method, especially where it touches on the field of Volunteered Geographic Information. Dunn is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

• 1. Introduction: academic crowdsourcing from the periphery to the centre2. From citizen science to community co-production3. Processes and products: a typology of crowdsourcing4. Crowdsourcing applied: case studies5. Roles and communities6. Motivations and benefits7. Ethical issues in humanities crowdsourcing8. Crowdsourcing and memory9. Crowds past, present and future