The Human Side of Digitized Knowledge: Community Curation of the Ethno-ornithology World Archive

民族鸟类世界档案馆（EWA）是一个基于互联网的面向公众的全球鸟类文化知识档案馆。EWA是在AHRC社区研究合作生产数字化转型赠款的财政支持下发起的，旨在通过对鸟类保护和文化和语言多样性的共同关注，将“当地”社区与保护从业者社区以及社会和生物学研究人员联系起来。为此，与国际鸟盟的项目伙伴关系对于EWA的设计和建立至关重要，尤其是因为国际鸟盟的地方赋权计划（LEP）基于大约2700个重要鸟类区（）和相关的基层地方保护团体（lcg），在100多个国家被确定为EWA的核心用户社区。尽管国际鸟盟在EWA伙伴关系中一直很重要，但我们在发展EWA方面的工作，特别是通过民族生物学学会（SoE）和国际民族生物学学会（ISE）以及SOAS的语言学家等会议建立的新联系，使我们确信有必要与目前位于国际鸟盟LEP之外的许多语言和文化独特的社区进行接触（因为他们没有与IBA联系）。但他们与EWA的合作将是互利的。通过通过西非环境行动项目建立的联系，这些社区包括五大洲的土著人民。他们还包括英国和其他地方的城市群体，他们经常被边缘化，与自然脱节，缺乏接触自然的机会。为了与这个扩展的社区进行接触，EWA需要建立一个值得信赖的、强大的、灵活的、反应迅速的全球策展人网络。随着全球用户群体的增长，这些管理员将是维护EWA应对不同社区需求和负责任的档案策略的能力的关键。他们将在EWA与其贡献社区之间提供知识渊博的人机界面。因此，拟议的项目旨在为EWA建立一个馆长网络，将这些档案资源扩展到目前无法通过国际鸟盟LEP访问的不同社区和受众。EWA的范围是全球性的，有可能扩展到所有语言群体；虽然它作为一种研究工具的价值是相当大的，但公众和社区参与对EWA的成功至关重要，因为：a)它是公开提交（众包）信息的存档，通过EWA与更大的社区共享，而不是捐赠；B)旨在肯定和支持当地在自然保育方面的努力；c)从长远来看，众筹对于维护这些档案非常重要。这些问题要求在EWA及其策展人网络的运作方式中体现最严格的道德原则，允许提交信息的许可条款不同，并允许个人或社区限制访问他们认为是秘密或敏感的材料。关键的是，EWA必须对不同的文化敏感性做出反应，并允许与个人和/或社区愿望一致的不同程度的社区参与，认识到最终选择是否与更广泛的受众分享他们的知识是他们的权利。该项目的主要成果将是1)建立一个由至少30名志愿者组成的种子网络，这些志愿者受到当地社区的信任，具有全球和/或当地鸟类分类学、当地语言、民族生物学、当地传统方面的专业知识，并接受过道德使用生态环境保护的培训；2)一份概述策展管理指导方针和策略的文件，以多种语言提供；3)馆长培训资料的数字化和翻译库，也是多语种的；4)一个有效和可扩展的数据库，用于高效的管理员管理；5)研究出版物；6)首届国际会议策展人工作坊。

The Ethno-ornithology World Archive (EWA) is an internet-based, public facing archive of global cultural knowledge relating to birds. EWA was initiated with financial support from an AHRC Digital Transformations in Community Research Co-Production grant with the aim of connecting 'local' communities with communities of conservation practitioners and social and biological researchers through a shared concern for the conservation of birds and cultural and linguistic diversity. To this end, the Project Partnership with BirdLife International is crucial to the design and establishment of EWA, not least because BirdLife's Local Empowerment Programme (LEP), based around 2,700 Important Bird Areas (IBAs) and associated grassroots Local Conservation Groups (LCGs) in more than 100 countries, was identified as the core user community for EWA.Despite the continuing importance of BirdLife International in the EWA Partnership, our work in developing EWA, especially through new contacts made through conferences of the Society of Ethnobiology (SoE) and International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE) and linguists at SOAS etc. has convinced us of the need to engage with the many linguistically and culturally distinct communities that currently lie outside BirdLife's LEP (because they are not associated with an IBA), but whose engagement with EWA would be mutually beneficial. Through contacts made through the EWA project, these communities include Indigenous people across five continents. They also include urban groups in the UK and elsewhere who are often marginalised and disconnected from, and lack access to, nature. To enable the engagement with this extended community EWA needs to develop a trustworthy, robust, flexible, and responsive network of Curators worldwide. These Curators will be the key to maintaining EWA's ability to respond to diverse community needs and responsible archival strategies as this global user community grows. They will provide a knowledgeable human interface where required between EWA and their contributing communities. The proposed project aims, therefore, to develop a Curator Network for EWA to extend the reach of this archive resource to diverse communities and audiences not currently accessible through BirdLife's LEP.EWA's scope is global, with potential outreach to all language groups; and while its value as a research tool is considerable, public and community engagement are essential to EWA's success because: a) it is an archive of publicly submitted (crowd-sourced) information that is being shared with, not donated to, a larger community through EWA; b) it aims to affirm and support local efforts in nature conservation; and c) crowd-funding will be important to maintain the archive in the long term. These concerns require the strongest ethical principles to be embodied within the modus operandi of EWA and its Curator Network to allow for varied terms of permission to submit information and to allow individuals or communities to restrict access to material that they deem to be secret or sensitive. Critically, EWA must be responsive to diverse cultural sensibilities and allow for differing degrees of community engagement consistent with individual and/or community wishes, recognising that ultimately it is their right to choose whether to share their knowledge with a wider audience.The principal outcomes of the project will be 1) a seed network of at least 30 volunteer curators, trusted by their local communities, with expertise in global and/or local bird taxonomy, local languages, ethnobiology, local traditions and trained in the ethical use of EWA; 2) a document outlining curation management guidelines and strategy, available in several languages; 3) a digitized and translated library of Curator training materials, also multilingual; 4) an effective and scalable database for efficient Curator management; 5) research publications; and 6) the first Curator Workshop at an international conference.