Innovative Technologies for Making Crowdsourcing most Effective inOnline Indexing

Dr. Jesper ZedlitzChristian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel

Verein für Computergenealogie = German Society for Computer Genealogy

2

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Agenda

● Short introduction

● Examples

● “Data Entry System” (DES)

● Transcription Speed

● Transcription Quality

● Future development

3

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Short Introduction

● Verein für Computergenealogie

= German Society for Computer Genealogy

– since 1989

– largest German Genealogical Society

– 3.600 members

– no public funding

4

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Examples

5

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Examples

Many quite simpleentries on one page

6

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Examples

One or a few complexentries on one page

7

CompGen · CAU Kiel

DES – The Project

● DES = Data Entry System

● objective: transcription of structured data from printed sources

Family name: KühnelBirth name: ZiltzGiven names: Hertha AntoniaDate: 22.2.Record number: 100

8

CompGen · CAU Kiel

DES – The Project

● start beginning of 2012

● first project: German WW1 casualty lists

– 31,000 pages

9

CompGen · CAU Kiel

DES – The Project

● meanwhile variety of other sources

– city directories,

– civil records,

– war grave lists, …

10

CompGen · CAU Kiel

DES – Technology

● web-based solution

+ no DVD shipping necessary

+ does not require special software

+ quick assistance possible

● work “on the image“

● search during work

+ voluntary transcribers want to see “their” entries online

● two-tiered transcription

1. single entries

2. groups of entries

11

CompGen · CAU Kiel

DES Web Application

12

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Data Entry

13

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Data Entry

14

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Data Entry

15

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Data Entry

16

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Search

17

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Search

18

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Search

19

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Area Data

20

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Area Data

21

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Area Data

22

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Area Data

23

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Area Data

24

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Web App – Area Data

25

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Does it work?

26

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Transcription Speed

● Transcribed entries and number of registered users

27

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Transcription Speed

● Entries per day

28

CompGen · CAU Kiel

How good is it?

29

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Approaches

● single transcription

● proofreading

transcriber

proofreader

30

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Approaches

● single transcription + double proofreading– e.g. Wiki-Source

● proofreading with arbitration

expert

31

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Approaches

● double-keying with arbitration

● double-keying with N-keyed run-off votes

A B A, B or C

…

A B C A

32

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Approaches

● totally inefficient?

…

A B C A

? →

33

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Quality Improvement

● German WW1 casualty lists– Gothic print

● small sample of 5,000 entries

● on average 15.6% errors for single keying

● varies from 6% to 78% for different users

34

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Quality Improvement

15.6% difference

1.1% difference

only 2.4% errors spotted

85% of the error remained undetected!

35

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Future Development

36

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Future Development

● Entry of relations between entries

37

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Future Development

● Entry of relations between entries

● Data Entry on mobile devices

38

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Future Development

● Entry of relations between entries

● Data Entry on mobile devices

● Captchas

39

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Future Development

● Entry of relations between entries

● Data Entry on mobile devices

● Captchas

● Combination OCR + manual transcription

40

CompGen · CAU Kiel

Thank you for your attention!

Questions?

des.genealogy.net