Developing a Flexible Platform for Crowdsourcing Historical Weather Records

Renée Sieber and Victoria Slonosky

Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, 2019, vol. 52, issue 3, 164-177

Abstract: Climatological data exists in historical documents, such as observatory registers, newspapers, ships’ logs and private diaries. Using present-day technologies, such as open source repositories and code mashups, and high-resolution digital scanning, software applications can be custom-designed to facilitate transcription of data that otherwise exists solely in paper format. We present a citizen science application for transcribing Canadian weather registers from the late 19th Century. The application is designed to engage citizen scientists with the historical record, respond to archival requirements, and fulfill the needs of the modern climate research community. User centered design allows for an iterative process in which end users – transcribers – are part of the entire cycle of system development. Incorporating users early in the process promises more motivated users and more accurate transcriptions of complex, historical scientific data.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01615440.2018.1558138 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:vhimxx:v:52:y:2019:i:3:p:164-177

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/vhim20

DOI: 10.1080/01615440.2018.1558138

Access Statistics for this article

Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History is currently edited by J. David Hacker and Kenneth Sylvester

More articles in Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().