Transcribe Bentham

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Cs Portal > List of citizen science projects > Transcribe Bentham - (2013/09/25)

Bentham.jpg
Bentham.jpg
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IDENTIFICATION

Participant's homepage
Start date : 2010/09/08
  • Beta start date : N/A
  • End date : Still open.
Subject

Description [[Has project description::Transcribe Bentham is a an award-winning participatory project based at University College London. Its aim is to engage the public in the online transcription of original and unstudied manuscript papers written by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the great philosopher and reformer, via a transcription interface based on a customised MediaWiki. "Transcribe Bentham emerged out of initial discussions between Professor Philip Schofield, the Director of the Bentham Project, and Martin Moyle of UCL Library Services, regarding the production of a digital Bentham resource for a forthcoming Arts and Humanities Research Council funding call. Martin proposed the establishment of a resource to facilitate crowdsourced transcription of the Bentham Papers, and a potential partnership between the Bentham Project, UCL Library Services, UCL’s Centre for Digital Humanities, and the University of London Computer Centre. After an initial meeting between Professor Schofield, Martin, Dr Melissa Terras (UCL DH), and Richard Davis (ULCC), hosted by Library Services, the project consortium was formed."(About Us, official project page)]] Purpose Digital images of Jeremy Benthams’ published manuscripts are transcribed by volunteers to ensure long term preservation of the Philosophers works. ? Research question

TEAM

MAIN TEAM LOCATION
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University College London, 26 Gordon Square, London, WC1.

Project team page http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham/people/ Leader: Philip Schofield Institution: Partner institutions: Contact: transcribe.bentham@ucl.ac.uk

USER TASKS

CONTRIBUTION TYPE:
PARTICIPATION TYPOLOGY: crowdsourcing


GAMING GENRE NONE
GAMING ELEMENTS: Points

COMPUTING
THINKING
SENSING
GAMING

Tasks description [[Has participant task description::The volunteer selects a manuscript, and is presented with a manuscript image alongside a free-text box, into which he or she enters their transcript (which can be saved at any time). Volunteers are also asked to add some basic formatting to their transcripts, and encode their work in Text-Encoding Initiative-compliant XML using a specially designed transcription toolbar. Using this, the volunteer can highlight a piece of text, or a position in the text, and click a button on the toolbar to identify a particular characteristic of that chosen portion. These include line breaks, paragraphs, unusual spellings, and frequent additions, deletions and marginalia present in the manuscripts. When a volunteer is happy with his or her transcript, it is submitted to Transcribe Bentham project staff for checking. From wikipedia]] Interaction with objects Volunteer can see high-resolution images of original manuscript. It is possible to zoom into images. Interface

  • Data type to manipulate: text
  • interface enjoyment: rather not cool/attractive
  • Interface usability: easy to use

GUIDANCE

GUIDANCE
  • Tutorial:
  • Peer to peer guidance: Somewhat
  • Training sequence: x
FEEDBACK ON
  • Individual performance:
  • Collective performance:
  • Research progress: x

Feedback and guidance description

COMMUNITY

COMMUNITY TOOLS
  • Communication:
  • Social Network: Twitter, Facebook
  • Member profiles:: N/A
  • Member profile elements:
NEWS & EVENTS

Community description

  • Community size (volounteers based)
  • Role:
  • Interaction form:
  • Has official community manager(s): N/A
  • Has team work N/A
  • Other:
  • Community led additions:


Other information

PROJECT

Url:http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project
Start date: 2010/09/08
End date: Still open


TEAM

Official team page:http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham/people/
Leader: Philip Schofield


Contact: transcribe.bentham@ucl.ac.uk
Main location: University College London, 26 Gordon Square, London, WC1.

PROJECT DEFINITION


Subject

Humanities > Literature (other)

Description

Transcribe Bentham is a an award-winning participatory project based at University College London. Its aim is to engage the public in the online transcription of original and unstudied manuscript papers written by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the great philosopher and reformer, via a transcription interface based on a customised MediaWiki. "Transcribe Bentham emerged out of initial discussions between Professor Philip Schofield, the Director of the Bentham Project, and Martin Moyle of UCL Library Services, regarding the production of a digital Bentham resource for a forthcoming Arts and Humanities Research Council funding call. Martin proposed the establishment of a resource to facilitate crowdsourced transcription of the Bentham Papers, and a potential partnership between the Bentham Project, UCL Library Services, UCL’s Centre for Digital Humanities, and the University of London Computer Centre. After an initial meeting between Professor Schofield, Martin, Dr Melissa Terras (UCL DH), and Richard Davis (ULCC), hosted by Library Services, the project consortium was formed."(About Us, official project page)

Purpose.

Digital images of Jeremy Benthams’ published manuscripts are transcribed by volunteers to ensure long term preservation of the Philosophers works.

.

ABOUT PARTICIPANT TASKS


Tasks description.

The volunteer selects a manuscript, and is presented with a manuscript image alongside a free-text box, into which he or she enters their transcript (which can be saved at any time). Volunteers are also asked to add some basic formatting to their transcripts, and encode their work in Text-Encoding Initiative-compliant XML using a specially designed transcription toolbar. Using this, the volunteer can highlight a piece of text, or a position in the text, and click a button on the toolbar to identify a particular characteristic of that chosen portion. These include line breaks, paragraphs, unusual spellings, and frequent additions, deletions and marginalia present in the manuscripts. When a volunteer is happy with his or her transcript, it is submitted to Transcribe Bentham project staff for checking. From wikipedia

Interaction with system objects.

Volunteer can see high-resolution images of original manuscript. It is possible to zoom into images.

Grey typology Participation typology Contribution type:
Computing: NO Thinking: YES
Sensing: NO Gaming: NO
Crowdsourcing Distributed intelligence
Participatory science Extreme citizen science
Science outreach
Data collection
Data analysis
Data interpretation --------
Gaming
Genre: Gaming elements: points
Interface
Data type to manipulate: text interface enjoyment: rather not cool/attractive
Interface usability: easy to use
Member profiles::N/A
Member profile elements:


ABOUT GUIDANCE AND FEEDBACK


Guidance Feedback on
Tutorial and documentation: YES
Training sequence: NO
Peer to peer guidance: SOMEWHAT
individual performance: YES
collective performance: YES
research progress: NO

.

COMMUNITY


Tools News & Events

Communication:
Social Network: Twitter, Facebook

Main news site: http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/bentham-project/
Frequency of project news updates: N/A
Type of events: other
Frequency of events :

Community description

Community size (volounteers based):
Role: Interaction form:
Has official community manager(s): N/A
Has team work N/A

Other information about community:
Community led additions:

OTHER PROJECT INFORMATION




Bentham.jpg Yes [[has completion level::Low]

http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham/people/

University College London, 26 Gordon Square, London, WC1. transcribe.bentham@ucl.ac.uk

Yes Literature Humanities other Digital images of Jeremy Benthams’ published manuscripts are transcribed by volunteers to ensure long term preservation of the Philosophers works.


Transcribe Bentham [[Has participant task description::The volunteer selects a manuscript, and is presented with a manuscript image alongside a free-text box, into which he or she enters their transcript (which can be saved at any time). Volunteers are also asked to add some basic formatting to their transcripts, and encode their work in Text-Encoding Initiative-compliant XML using a specially designed transcription toolbar. Using this, the volunteer can highlight a piece of text, or a position in the text, and click a button on the toolbar to identify a particular characteristic of that chosen portion. These include line breaks, paragraphs, unusual spellings, and frequent additions, deletions and marginalia present in the manuscripts. When a volunteer is happy with his or her transcript, it is submitted to Transcribe Bentham project staff for checking. From wikipedia]]


crowdsourcing text, other: Thinking: yes Computing: no Sensing: no Gaming: no points

Volunteer can see high-resolution images of original manuscript. It is possible to zoom into images. rather not cool/attractive easy to use yes somewhat no yes yes no

N/A

N/A

Twitter, Facebook other

http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/bentham-project/

N/A


N/A


Low

Volunteer Interviews

Interview of volunteer by Kathleen. Volunteer talks about how it was satisfying to feel like you’re contributing to something. They liked the fact that the project was democratic in that anyone could get involved since the academic world can sometimes be a bit exclusive. Points earned from transcribing were another big motivator.

Other Info

Project has been covered by many major international newspapers and radios and has won The Award of Distinction in the Digital Communities category of the Prix Ars Electronica- all creation a positive reputation for it in the community.

Assessment

Volunteers seem more motivated to participate when it involves history. A few have made discoveries into the life of Jeremy Bentham through the transcribing of his manuscripts. The fact that they will be the first people to read these papers since he wrote them is enough to get them involved.

One volunteer described it as a ‘“literary form of archeology”. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/6/2/000125/000125.html



Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY