Category: presentation

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Guest post 'Tips for digital participation, engagement and crowdsourcing in museums' for London Museums Group

I was asked to share some of the lessons I've learnt from building digital participation projects in museums and from my research on crowdsourcing in cultural heritage for the London Museums Group blog following my talk at their “Museums and Social Media” event on 24 May at Tate Britain.

They were published at 'Tips for digital participation, engagement and crowdsourcing in museums by Mia Ridge', but as the site doesn't seem to be loading I've re-posted it below. I think most of what I wrote then holds up, but today I'd add a third bonus tip – plan to ingest the results of your crowdsourcing tasks into whatever internal systems are necessary to appropriately integrate and re-share the enhanced or new data.

To pinch from my headings, I discuss the advantages of digital engagement; challenges for museums – new relationships, new authorities, dissolving boundaries; 6 tips for designing digital participation experiences in museums; 2 bonus tips for designing crowdsourcing projects in museums.

There are other event reports at A round up of the LMG Museums and Social Media Event.

If you found this post useful, you might be interested in my book, Crowdsourcing Our Cultural Heritage.

Continue reading "Guest post 'Tips for digital participation, engagement and crowdsourcing in museums' for London Museums Group"

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Keynote: Participatory Practices: Inclusion, Dialogue and Trust

Pavillion 0 at the Sigma Foundation's palazzo on Campo San Paolo, VeniceI was invited to present with Helen Weinstein at the We Curate kick-off seminar at the Pavillion 0 at the Sigma Foundation's palazzo on the opening weekend of the Venice Biennale. Our slides for Participatory practices: inclusion, dialogue and trust in museums and academia are online, and I blogged about our talk and the event for Historyworkstv: Participatory Practice Presentation at the Venice Biennale.

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Talk: 'Digital challenges, digital opportunities' at MCG Play

MCG Play logoAs Chair of the Museums Computer Group, it was a pleasure to attend the MCG's Spring meeting, 'Engaging Visitors Through Play', at the University of Ulster's Centre for Media Research in Belfast on May 30.

I spoke on 'Digital challenges, digital opportunities', and my aim was to introduce the Museums Computer Group, discuss some of the challenges museums and their staff are facing and think about how to create opportunities from those challenges.  I've posted my notes at 'Digital challenges, digital opportunities' at MCGPlay, Belfast.

I blogged about the event at 'Engaging Visitors Through Play' – the Museums Computer Group in Belfast and my post was picked up and re-posted as a guest post, 'Game on', for the Museums Association blog.

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Conference paper: New Challenges in Digital History: Sharing Women's History on Wikipedia

I'll be presenting 'New Challenges in Digital History: Sharing Women's History on Wikipedia' in the 'Developments in Digital Women's History' strand of the Women’s History in the Digital World conference at The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education at Bryn Mawr on March 23, 2013.

Abstract:

In 1908 Ina von Grumbkow undertook an expedition to Iceland. She later made significant contributions to the field of natural history and wrote several books but other than passing references online and a mention on her husband's Wikipedia page, her story is only available to those with access to sources like the 'Earth Sciences History' journal.

Cumulative centuries of archival and theoretical work have been spent recovering women's histories, yet much of this inspiring scholarship is invisible outside academia. Inspired by research into the use and creation of digital resources and the wider impact of these resources on historians and their scholarship, this paper is a deliberate provocation: if we believe the subjects of our research are important, then we should ensure they are represented on freely available encyclopaedic sites like Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is the fifth most visited website in the world and the first port of call for most students and the public, yet women's history is poorly represented. This paper discusses how the difficulties of adding women's histories to Wikipedia exemplify some of the new challenges and opportunities of digital history and the ways in which it blurs the line between public history and purely academic research.

Update: I've posted my talk notes at New challenges in digital history: sharing women's history on Wikipedia – my draft talk notes.