This document discusses optimizing crowdsourcing websites for volunteer participation. It identifies 5 main elements that impact achieving the primary objective of a specific page or website: 1) the value proposition for why visitors should take action, 2) what will motivate visitors to take action, 3) incentives for taking action, 4) friction elements of the process, and 5) anxiety about entering information. It also references sources that provide more information on methodologies for analyzing websites and discusses how well public creativity, participation, and sharing can be imagined and rewarded.

1. Optimizing crowdsourcing websites
for volunteer participation
Donelle McKinley
Victoria University of Wellington
@donellemckinley
www.digitalglam.org

2. 50/50 Walker Art Center Ancient Lives University of Oxford Citizen
Archivist National Archives Civil War Faces Library of Congress Click!
Brooklyn Museum The Great War Archive Oxford University The
IndexerArchivesNZMap Rectifier New York Public Library Marine Lives
Old Weather Prism University of Virginia Search the Collection Victoria
and Albert Museum Steve Social Tagging for Cultural Collections
Transcribe Bentham University College London Trove National Library
of Australia Reading Experience Database Open University UK UK
Soundmap British Library What’s on the menu? New York Public
Library What’s the score at the Bodleian? Bodleian Libraries Your
Paintings Tagger Public Catalogue Foundation & BBC Galaxy Zoo
Digitalkoot National Library of Finland Dickens Journals Online Universi

5. 5 main elements impacting on the process of achieving
the primary objective of a specific page or website:
1. Value proposition (why the visitor should take action)
2. Motivation (when the visitor will take action)
3. Incentive to take action
4. Friction elements of the process
5. Anxiety about entering information
http://www.meclabs.com/methodology

14. Getting under the hood…
Image: http://www.google.co.nz/analytics/

15. The opportunity before us, individually and collectively,
is enormous; what we do with it will be determined
largely by how well we are able to imagine and reward
public creativity, participation, and sharing.
Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.
New York: Penguin Press.
Thank you!
www.digitalglam.org