Voices of the Volunteers: The experience of online citizen research

Have you ever volunteered in an online cultural heritage project? Whether you've worked on a project coming from a museum, archive, gallery or other cultural institution, we'd love to hear from you. Please do join us at our upcoming online event on 1 December 2021.

Engaging Crowds: Citizen research and heritage data at scale harnesses the capabilities of people-powered research to enrich understanding of cultural heritage collections through digitally enabled participation. As part of this project, Royal Museums Greenwich is hosting an online workshop to hear volunteers' opinions on what works and what doesn't when it comes to online cultural heritage projects.

If you've transcribed documents, tagged images or volunteered on an online cultural heritage project in other ways, we'd be very grateful if you'd be willing to share your experience with us.

We want to know: what motivates and engages you? What kinds of tasks do you enjoy? What features do you like and how could the platforms you use be improved? What is it about online cultural heritage projects that encourages you to give your time and how can we make that volunteer experience better?

The workshop will start with short presentations from speakers, providing an overview of the Engaging Crowds project and a demonstration of a brand new indexing tool on the Zooniverse citizen research platform, which allows volunteers to choose their own pathway through a citizen research project. An important part of the workshop will be informal discussions in break out groups where we will ask you to chat about your experiences and preferences relating to online volunteering.

Join us for an online only event.
Date: Wednesday 1 December 2021
When: 14.00-16.00 GMT
Where: Online, via Zoom registration

Places are limited and will be on a first come first served basis. To register your place, contact HMSNHS@rmg.co.uk.