Update: Here are our notes from the discussion: docs.google.com/document/d/1qKnwi–Y867jrIZECgNnyyCE8RhW67g_ChR_bxvxQ1k/edit

I’d like to propose a session on crowdsourcing and engaging the public in digital humanities efforts. My background is in computer science, so I’m especially interested in discussing how folks from the humanities are (thinking about) using crowdsourcing or otherwise soliciting public participation in their work. Possible discussion topics include:

• How can we involve novices and amateurs in contributing meaningfully to DH projects?
• What are examples of compelling crowdsourced DH efforts we should know about?
• What technical and social challenges are we experiencing in engaging the public in our DH projects?
• When is crowdsourcing a good idea? When are automated approaches more effective?
• How can we build a critical mass of participants? How can we sustain that participation?
• What ethical issues should we consider when planning crowdsourced DH projects?
• What are fruitful ways for novices and experts (e.g. scholars) to support each other in a DH context?
• What lessons from crowdsourcing in other domains (citizen science, etc.) can we bring to DH, and vice versa?

THATCamp happens to fall in the middle of a project I am working on involving the social media app Yik Yak. So far I have had no trouble pulling user posts from the app (I have done similar projects with Twitter and Reddit), but I want to supplement this textual data with ethnographic interviews with users, similar to danah boyd’s social media research. This is a new approach for me, and so I am interested in discussing, collaborating, and learning more about this type of research at THATCamp. I am open to discuss any aspect of social media research projects, including:

• Using APIs to access social media data
• Tools for quantitative analysis of textual social media data
• Recruiting participants from online communities for in-person interviews
• Interview strategies for contextualizing social media data
• Grounded theory approaches to coding and analysis
• Ethical issues in online community research
• Social media research projects in the classroom