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Analysing citizen-birthed data on minor heritage assets: models, promises and challenges

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Abstract

The citizen science paradigm and the practices related to it have for the last decade called a wide attention, beyond academics, in many application fields with as a result a significant impact on discipline-specific research processes and on information sciences as such. Indeed, in the specific context of minor heritage (tangible and intangible cultural heritage assets that are left aside from large official heritage programmes), citizen-birthed contributions appear as a major opportunity in the harvesting and enrichment of data sets. With more content made available on the net by a variety of local actors, we may have reached a moment when collecting and analysing spatio-historical information appears “easier”, with citizens acting as potential (and legitimate) sensors. But is it really “easier”? And if so, at what cost? Having a closer look on practical challenges behind the curtain can avoid turning the above-mentioned opportunity into a lost one. This contribution discusses feedbacks from a research initiative aimed at better circumscribing the difficulties one has to foresee if wanting to harvest and visualise pieces of data on minor heritage collections and then to derive from them spatial, temporal and thematic knowledge. The contribution focuses on four major aspects: a feedback on the information and on the information available, a description grid for factors of imperfection to be anticipated, visual solutions we have experimented in order to support analytical tasks, and lessons learnt in terms of relations between academics and information providers.

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Acknowledgements

This research is funded by the Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur regional authorities and conducted in cooperation with the Mucem (Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée)—authors thank E. De Laubrie and Y. Padilla (Grant Number APO 2015_07733_07736).

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  1. UMR CNRS/MC 3495 MAP, Marseille, France

    Jean-Yves Blaise, Iwona Dudek & Gamze Saygi

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  1. Jean-Yves Blaise
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  2. Iwona Dudek
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  3. Gamze Saygi
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Correspondence to Jean-Yves Blaise.

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Blaise, JY., Dudek, I. & Saygi, G. Analysing citizen-birthed data on minor heritage assets: models, promises and challenges. Int J Data Sci Anal 10, 81–99 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41060-019-00194-0

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