Van crowdsourcing naar echte burgerwetenschap.

Leuven University Press eBooks, pp. 105–117

Abstract

The interdisciplinary research project Chronicling Novelty. New Knowledge in the Netherlands, 1500-1850 examines how new knowledge was disseminated among a wider audience of non-experts in the early modern Netherlands based on a source corpus of over 200 Dutch-language local chronicles. Most of this corpus, a total of over 35,000 scans of manuscripts collected from Dutch and Belgian archives, have been transcribed and annotated with the help of volunteers. To take full advantage of the potential time, knowledge and skills of volunteers, a considerable investment is needed on the part of researchers. A survey conducted among our volunteers showed that most of them considered information, instruction, feedback, and appreciation much more important than a material reward. Furthermore, we found that differentiation between volunteers is important. Some people like to perform relatively simple tasks, while others want to be more actively involved and contribute their expertise and ideas. Closer contact with researchers can reveal this enthusiasm as well as the knowledge and experience people have, which can be used. More communication, involvement and ownership of certain tasks is then desirable. Own initiatives and projects could emerge from this. The biggest bottleneck for citizen science is the available time and resources of researchers. Current funding instruments for researchers do not meet this need.

Authors 3

1. Theo Dekker Aachen

   Leiden University · Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Universiteit Leiden) en Erika Kuijpers (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), computationeel

   Universiteit Leiden, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Universiteit Leiden Van crowdsourcing naar echte burgerwetenschap

   gastonderzoeker Carolina

2. Erika Kuijpers Aachen

   Leiden University · Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Universiteit Leiden) en Erika Kuijpers (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), computationeel

   Universiteit Leiden, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Universiteit Leiden Van crowdsourcing naar echte burgerwetenschap

   gastonderzoeker Carolina

3. Carolina Lenarduzzi Aachen

   Leiden University · Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Universiteit Leiden) en Erika Kuijpers (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), computationeel

   Universiteit Leiden, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Universiteit Leiden Van crowdsourcing naar echte burgerwetenschap

   gastonderzoeker Carolina