Matt Chilcott

PhD ResearcherCommunities 2.0

Exploring community curation of the

World’s First Wikipedia Town

Attribution: John Cummings Wikimedia Commons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/MonmouthpediA

Matt Chilcott

PhD ResearcherCommunities 2.0

PhD in Digital Inclusion, New Technologies & Social Justice

A correlation exists between enabling meaningful digital inclusion and the manner in which internet tools are constructed and utilised to support excluded members of society express their sense of identity and cultural heritage.

DIJ Digital Inclusion Journal

- digital scholarship research methodology

- portal of sources, evidence base and dissemination tool

http://www.raglanundersiege1646.co.uk

Chilcott, M. & Damsell, T. (2012) DLPR Industrial Past Heritage Interpretation Trail

Chilcott, M, Howell, R., Gray, M. & Damsell, T. (2012) Ancient Cwmbran – A Walk through time Digital Heritage Trail

Howell, R., Chilcott, M. Damsell, T. & Richards, E. (2011) Raglan Under Siege 1646 Digital Heritage Trail

Howell, R, Chilcott, M., Hadfield, T. & Richards, E. (2010) Roman Caerleon Digital Interpretation Trail

Chilcott, M., Howell, R., Damsell, T. & Smith, A. (2010) Digital Heritage Learning and Knowledge Exchange Zone, including the Medieval Newport Virtual Museum - a Featured Destination in Second Life

Chilcott, M., Howell, R., Hadfield, T & Pruegel, I (2009)Reclaiming King Arthur - The Legend in the Landscape

Howell, R., Chilcott, M., Hadfield, T & Richards, E. (2008)Newport's Historical River Digital Heritage Trail

http://idl.newport.ac.uk/romancaerleontrail/promo

Monmouthpedia is a World first project which attempted to use Wikipedia (the People’s Encyclopedia) to cover every notable place, person, artefact, plant, animal and other things in Monmouth in as many languages as possible.

Devised by John Cummings and supported by Wiki Media UK, Monmouthshire County Council and local and global content creating contributors.

Philosophical underpinning - Knowledge gives us context and it allows us to appreciate our surroundings more.

The Council for British Archaeology designated Monmouth as the seventh best town for archaeology in Britain.

Monmouthpedia uses QRpedia codes, a type of bar code a smartphone can read through its camera (using one of the many free QR readers available) that takes you to a Wikipedia article in your language.

http://qrpedia.org

QRpedia is the first language detecting QR code that can connect community curated notable digital content around the world to Wikipedia.

Developed by Roger Bamkin and Terence Eden in 2011 & originally deployed in a curatorial context in Museums across the world.

People scan a QR code and are taken directly to a mobile friendly Wikipedia page written in the user’s preferred language.

Wiki Media UK statement on Monmouthpedia:

We’re working to make the sum total of human knowledge available to everyone, everywhere, for free. For this aim to ever be achievable will require mass collaboration and mobilisation of communities = local communities, but on a global level.

Monmouthpedia is the first step in this process and shows a way for other communities to follow.

Or, as our co-founder Jimmy Wales puts it:

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.”

In January 2012 Wikipedia was the 6th most visited webspace in the world and Wicipedia Cymraeg is identified by Welsh Government as the most visited web space in the Welsh language.

QR codes are extremely useful, as physical signs have no way of displaying the same amount of information and in a potentially huge number of languages.

Over 1000 QRpedia codes have been deployed around the Monmouth to date.

Articles have coordinates (geotags) to also allow a virtual tour of the town using Wikipedia's mobile apps (or the Wikipedia layer on Google Streetview) and are available in augmented reality software including Layar.

Ceramic plaques for places exposed to the elements for articles specific to Monmouth.

Labels for use inside buildings, e.g. for objects in museums.

Glass stickers in the windows of shops to give information on their professions .

Community co-created content curated through local and international online collaboration .

Use of QRpedia code technology to enable anywhere access to the relevant content from the People’s Encyclopaedia throughout the town.

Community collaboration with the Museum, Library, Tourism and University contributors to enable a pervasive museum visitor experience .

Local knowledge and curation of the digital space creating visitor trails and sharing of newly digitised content celebrating the cultural identity and heritage of the town.

New sense of place and enabling new understandings and digital identity with both a local and global reach.

Monmouth as a consequence has become Wales’ first Wifi Town with free public access to the internet . There is a new emphasis on anywhere or mobile digital inclusion.

Over 1000 new images relating to Monmouth shared for creative commons use in Wiki Media Commons over a 4 month period.

Attribution: Victuallers Wiki Commons

Over 1000 QRpedia codes around the town including - including the Heritage trail, Food Mile trail, the Professions trail, fingerpost signs, plaques on buildings, codes in the Shire Hall, Monmouth Museum, Regimental Museum.

Monmouth Library embraced potential of QRpedia have been adding codes in books linking to the authors.

In May 2012:

550 of the articles generated for the Monmouthpedia experience were available in over 30 different languages.

Launch media led to 270+ newspaper articles in 38 countries, including Independent, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Times of India, Iran Today……

Exploring the Literacy & Lifecycle of Digital Curation

Source: DCC Digital Curation Centrehttp://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/curation-lifecycle-model

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrblN3f5sx0

Matt Chilcott

PhD ResearcherCommunities 2.0

Exploring community curation of the

World’s First Wikipedia Town

Attribution: John Cummings Wikimedia Commons