The strategic goals of the Wikimedia movement to "become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge" and the Smithsonian for "Greater Reach, Greater Relevance, Profound Impact" are complementary and provide a basis for deep collaboration.The Smithsonian Office of Digital Transformation (ODT) was formed in August 2021 to transform the Smithsonian into an organization that uses the power of data and technology to better understand, engage, inspire, and impact the nation and the world.
This project will result in a Playbook for Crowdsourcing Accessible Image Descriptions which will outline a community engagement strategy, best practices, and resources necessary to enable a critical mass of cultural organizations to address this need.
Three public events or ‘action research’ engaging potential volunteers to understand their motivations, training required, and preferred methods for engagement.
Development of an image description process rubric that allows volunteers and cultural organizations to assess their image description practices and outputs.
A freely available digital playbook (CC-BY license) to help cultural organizations design programs to crowdsource accessible image descriptions, which will include the following:
Synthesized research and audience study rationale, process, and findings
Principles for engaging the crowd in ethical and accessible image descriptions
Requirements for launching a successful and inclusive crowdsourcing program that could be widely adopted across the cultural sector
Resources necessary for sustaining crowd engagement over the long-term
A Smithsonian data integration and preservation plan for crowdsourced data with an eye towards proposing a model for incorporating data into the GLAM system of record.
Define objectives, scope, and evaluation strategy for action research, including draft visual description process rubric to be tested during action research
Establish research questions to inform design of audience studies
Action Research and Landscape Study [CY2022 Q4]
Series of exploratory working sessions with volunteers and practitioners to explore successful practices and unpack research questions
Documentation ongoing to contribute to a final playbook
Develop data integration & preservation plan [CY2023 Q1]
Produce Playbook [CY2023 Q2]
Synthesize action research findings into clear, concise guidance to support visual description crowdsourcing programs
