Are GLAMs Ready for Open Data and Crowdsourcing?Results of a pilot survey from Switzerland and their implications for GLAM-Wiki outreach

Beat Estermann, 10 August 2013 – Wikimania, Hong Kong

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

2

Introduction

• Background

• Survey among GLAMs in Switzerland

• Pilot GLAM-Wiki cooperations in Switzerland / exchanges with GLAM representatives

• Focus of this Session:

• What are the implications of the results for Wikimedia? What can we do to facilitate Open Data and Crowdsourcing in the GLAM sector?

• Discussion / exchange of experiences

• Structure:

• Survey results in a condensed form

• Theses for discussion

3

Where do Swiss GLAMs stand today with regard to…?

…Digitization?…Exchange of metadata in multilateral cooperation?…Open Data?…Crowdsourcing?…Linked Open Data?

What are the perceived risks and opportunities? (drivers vs. hindering factors)What are the expected benefits? Who are the beneficiaries?

Awareness Evaluation

AdoptionTrialInterest

Innovation Diffusion Model, Everett Rogers, 1962

4

Pilot Study among Swiss GLAMs

GLAMs in Switzerland:

• ca. 600-700 independent GLAMs of national or regional significance

• ca. 1000 independent GLAMs organized in three umbrella organizations

Our sample: memory institutions of national significance in the German-speaking part of Switzerland

• 197 organisations contacted (233 e-mail addresses)

• 72 questionnaires completed (34% of the contacted organisations)

Caveats:

• The sample is rather small (results are not very precise with regard to the entire Swiss GLAM population, large confidence intervals apply)

• Archives are over-represented in the sample (higher response rate); museums and «other institutions» are under-represented; libraries are about average.

5

Innovation Diffusion among Swiss GLAMs: The Overall Picture

A critical mass has been reached.How about the laggards?

Will we see a higher rate of adoption for Open Data than for Crowdsourcing?

Some institutions are starting to think about Linked Data…

6

Open Data / Open Content Readiness

Between 1% and 7% of responding GLAMs make scans/photographs of their heritage objects «freely» available on the Internet.

Over half of them make them available on the Internet, but with restrictions. 40% don’t make them available at all.

Over 50% of the GLAMs which make their heritage objects available on the Internet do not understand that you cannot make works available for Wikipedia and simultaneously prevent their modification and/or their commercial use!

7

Open Data: Target Groups, Opportunities vs. Risks

Main target groups:

• Research and education

• Private individuals

• Cultural institutions

Main opportunities:

• Better visibility and accessibility of holdings

• Better visibility of the institutions

• Better networking among GLAMs.

Main risks:

• Extra time effort and expenses (loss of revenue is hardly seen as a risk)

• Loss of control: copyright, data protection, secrecy infringements

8

Desirability and Importance of Open Data

-10 to -8

-8 to -6 -6 to -4 -4 to -2 -2 to 0 0 to 2 2 to 4 4 to 6 6 to 8 8 to 10

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

0%1%

6% 6%7%

36%

25%

11%

6%

3%

Desirability of Open Data (in % of institutions, N=71)

very impor-tant

important neither, nor unimportant no answer0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

1%8% 7%

3%

21%31%

8% 14%

6%

Importance / Desirability of Open Data (in % of institutions; N=71)

risks prevail opportunities prevail

For over 80% of responding GLAMs the opportunities outweigh the risks of Open Data.

Over 50% think Open Data is an important issue; almost all of these believe that the opportunities outweigh the risks.

9

Open Data / “Free” Licensing of Content

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

59%76%

60%

29%7%

69%40%

21%

19%23%

26%

9%

20%

34%

1%

Conditions under which they would make memory objects freely accessible on the Internet (in % der Institutionen; N=70)

"is partly the case"

"is the case"

Most GLAMs wouldn’t readily agree to «freely» license their content – even in the absence of third party rights: they would like to prevent the commercial use at no charge as well as the modification of works. Education, Research, and a non-profit purpose are good arguments in favour of free licensing.

10

Crowdsourcing Readiness

11% of responding GLAMs have staff members who contribute to Wikipedia as part of their professional activity.

10% of responding GLAMs say that online volunteering plays partly an important role for them. Interestingly, no correlation was found between the two variables.

11

Crowdsourcing: Opportunities vs. Risks

Main areas of application:

• Classification tasks / completion of metadata

• Ca. 50% of GLAMs perceive a need to improve their metadata.

• Main areas for improvement: completeness, availability, digitization

• Transcription and correction tasks

Main drawbacks:

• Considerable time / effort needed for preparation and follow-up

• No guarantee concerning long-term data maintenance

• Unforeseeable results

• Difficulties in estimating the time-effort

• Low level of planning security

12

Desirability and Importance of Crowdsourcing

-10 to -8

-8 to -6 -6 to -4 -4 to -2 -2 to 0 0 to 2 2 to 4 4 to 6 6 to 8 8 to 10

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

4%

15%

19%

11%

43%

3% 3% 1%

Desirability of Crowdsourcing (in % of institutions; N=69)

very impor-tant

important neither, nor unimportant no answer0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

10%

25%

14%

29%

16%

3%

1% 1%

Importance / Desirability of Crowdsourcing (in % of institutions; N=69)

risks prevail opportunities prevail

For over 90% of the responding GLAMs the risks of Crowdsourcing are at least as great as the opportunities. For half of them the risks clearly prevail.

Among GLAMs which think that Crowdsourcing is an important issue, the risk perception is equally high.

Crowdsourcing is seen as almost as important as Open Data!

13

Digitization and Availability on the Internet / Exchange of Metadata

60% of institutions make metadata and reproductions of heritage objects at least partly available on the Internet. 40% still don’t!

61% of the responding GLAMs exchange metadata with other institutions. 39% don’t.

30% do so in the context of bilateral cooperation; 43% in the context of multilateral cooperation.

For 29% the exchange of metadata is part of their core mission. 17% say this is partly the case.

14

Implications for Wikimedia – Theses (1/3)

• In the short term, it is worthwhile to pursue approaches that do not require a high level of mutual engagement between GLAMs and the community (simply releasing content is easier than engaging in more complex cooperation!)

• Wikipedia / Wikimedia has excellent arguments in favor of the “free” release of content:

• It’s for education and research

• It’s for a non-profit cause

• It’s useful (documenting the use / usefulness is important!)

• Wikipedia / Wikimedia can be an attractive partner within the Open Data movement and should join forces with the Open Knowledge Foundation and national Open Government Data initiatives!

15

Implications for Wikimedia – Theses (2/3)

• Education / information efforts with regard to GLAMs need to focus on:

• Knowledge about the “free” licensing requirement of Wikipedia

• Positive accounts how the relative loss of control is managed by other institutions

• Demonstrating how the provenance of the data / content is documented

• Examples of how a useful content contribution can be made without any extra effort (often, removing the non-commercial claim in the license would already be of great help!)

• Communication efforts with regard to GLAMs should focus on:

• Putting collections and cross-organizational themes at the center of attention (and not the institution)

• Telling them how released contents have been used and what types of content would be particularly useful

16

Implications for Wikimedia – Theses (3/3)

• Real cooperation is costly. It is important to demonstrate and document its usefulness and to foster learning processes that benefit the entire GLAM sector.

• The Wikimedia movement should examine to what extent it can respond to GLAMs' needs and expectations in terms of metadata improvement and correction/transcription tasks and communicate clearly about it.

• The Wikimedia movement should examine to what extent it can support digitization efforts of GLAMs that haven't been digitizing their heritage objects yet – in exchange for “free” licensing. And communicate clearly about it.

• Metadata is important for GLAMs: The potential of Wikidata with regard to GLAM metadata should be better explored.

17

Implications for Wikimedia - Discussion

Now it’s your turn...

Minutes:

http://etherpad.wmflabs.org/pad/p/glamsurvey

18

Outlook / Next Steps

• Promote the study among GLAMs and political actors in Switzerland

• Orient GLAM outreach activities in the light of the findings

• Promote “free” licensing at a large scale, cf. OpenGLAM Principles

• Foster mutual learning in the area of Crowdsourcing and (Linked) Open Data (OpenGLAM Network); make sure that benefits are achieved and documented; improve coordination along the supply-chain

• Examine ways to improve digitization coverage

• Evaluate the demand for follow-up studies:

• Study with a larger sample in Switzerland

• Longitudinal study in Switzerland (e.g. similar survey in 2014 to measure the changes)

• International benchmark studyPlease contact me if you are interested!

19

Thank You for Your Participation!

Full study report:

English: http://tinyurl.com/SwissGLAMsurvey

Deutsch: http://tinyurl.com/GLAMStudie

Contact details:

Beat EstermannE-mail: beat.estermann@bfh.chPhone: +41 31 848 34 38

Affiliations:

Research Associate, E-Government Institute, Bern University of Applied SciencesMember of opendata.ch (Swiss Chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation)Member of Digitale Allmend (Swiss Chapter of CreativeCommons)Member of Wikimedia CH

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.