About Crowdsourcing for Humanities Research

Stanford University’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) is teaming with Historypin on a two-year research study to examine the potential for leveraging crowdsourced information about photographic, map, and textual content for humanities research.

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this unique study brings together an amazing team of scholarly humanities researchers, technology industry professionals, developers, and designers to explore the potential of applying engagement strategies proven in the game and social media industries to aid in academic research.  

The study will focus on three distinct humanities research projects that utilize a variety of crowdsourcing approaches, with the intention of identifying multiple ways for different interest groups to contribute to scholarly research, financial considerations for academic research teams, and potential best practices for humanities crowdsourcing engagement.

The three projects are:

--Year of the Bay

2013 will see the opening of the new Oakland Bay Bridge and the America’s Cup Yacht Race, and the Year of the Bay project will focus on that dynamic waterway as well as the culture and cultural heritage surrounding it over time.  The project will give the public the opportunity to interact with Bay Area history and contribute to challenges that help map historical photos and align old maps with the current map of the Bay, while contributing to a more complete view of history.

--Tagging 500 Novels

This project will enlist the help of the literary public to map the social networks of 500 novels, refining information about the relationships between characters.

--The Western Railroads Project

The Western Railroads Project will engage railroad enthusiasts, genealogists and other expert communities to contribute historical photographs of Western railroads as well help map historical photos from various contributing archives.  Enthusiasts will also have the ability to identify and annotate features on old maps pertinent to the railroads and western expansion.

Throughout the study, we’ll be sharing our research through regular blog entries about the work that’s going on behind the scenes, and of course you’ll be able to participate in the projects themselves as they evolve online.