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Looking back on 2012, I feel like it’s going to be remembered as the ‘Year of the Crowd.’ From the huge success of Kickstarter, to numerous high-profile academic projects, crowd-sourcing has had an huge impact of the way the internet is used.

This edition of ‘Links of the Week’ will look at five different ways crowd-sourcing is being used by academics and universities.

1. Artificial Intelligence Powered by Many Humans – This posts is about a project being conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester that uses fleeting micro-contributions from humans to complete tasks that are better suited for people than machines. In returning for lending their brief expertise, participants are rewarded with a few cents that can be reimbursed at stores like Amazon. It’s an interesting post that perhaps gives a glimpse into the future of crowd sourcing on the internet.

2. Historians Ask the Crowd to Help Organize the Past – This article provides a good overview of a number of different historical crowd-sourcing project. While it believes that the jury is still out on the effectiveness of crowd sourcing, it recognizes that crowd sourcing projects are proving to be an effective way to engage a larger audience.

3. Crowding Sourcing, Undergraduates, and Digital Humanities Projects – Something that I value about the digital humanities is its spirit of inclusivity. This blog post embodies this spirit by listing a number of digital humanities projects that encourage support from undergraduate students. It’s amazing in the three years since I completed my undergrad degree just how many opportunities have opened up for younger researchers to get involved in digital humanities projects.

4. Collaborative Manuscript Transcription – As someone with a background in old-school paleography, the idea of using computers and the web to make the transcription process easier really excites me. This fantastic blog looks at how the digital humanities are changing the ways researchers approach manuscripts. From scanning, to programming, to crowd sourcing, this blog is a good introduction to manuscript studies in the digital age.

5. DH2010 Plenary: Present, Not Voting: Digital Humanities in the Panopticon - While many of you may have read this post before, or may be familiar with Melissa Terras’s work, I read her plenary to the DH2010 Conference just the other day. Terras, who works with UCL’s crowd sourcing project Transcribe Bentham, wrote an excellent look at the state of digital humanities in 2010. In particular, I appreciate that she stresses the importance of the web presence of the digital humanities. After speaking with Terras on twitter (@melissaterras), she wrote that while the web presence of the digital humanities has improved in the past two years, it still has a long way to go, especially when it comes to adopting mobile technology. This post is a fantastic read.

Well that wraps up another edition of ‘Links of the week.’ Last week the site was a little slower than I had hoped. As it turned out, finishing a conference paper and making plans to fly to Japan managed to eat up a lot more of my free time than I had expected. Even though Japan is really close geographically, it’s still a pain to work out all the details.

Look for another slower week on ivrytwr. I’ll likely post more thoughts about the role storytelling plays in digital engagement as I finalize my paper for the JADH2012 Conference. Also, look for two ivrytwr Summer Road-trip videos this week.

Thanks for reading, have a great week.

@Ryan__Hunt