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

民族鸟类学世界档案馆（Ethno-ornithology World Archive，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转型赠款的财政支持下启动的，目的是通过共同关注鸟类保护以及文化和语言多样性，将“当地”社区与保护从业者和社会及生物研究人员社区联系起来。为此，与国际鸟盟的项目合作伙伴关系对于设计和建立EWA至关重要，尤其是因为国际鸟盟的地方授权计划（LEP），基于100多个国家的2，700个重要鸟类保护区（IBAs）和相关的基层地方保护团体（LCG），被确定为EWA的核心用户社区。尽管国际鸟盟在EWA合作伙伴关系中继续发挥重要作用，但我们在开发EWA方面的工作，特别是通过人类生物学学会（SoE）和国际人类生物学学会（伊势）的会议以及SOAS等语言学家建立的新联系，使我们确信有必要与目前处于国际鸟盟LEP之外的许多语言和文化上不同的社区进行接触（因为他们与IBA没有关联），但他们与EWA的接触将是互利的。通过EWA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，他们往往被边缘化，与自然脱节，无法接触自然。为了能够与这个扩展的社区进行互动，EWA需要在全球范围内建立一个值得信赖的，强大的，灵活的和响应式的策展人网络。这些馆长将是保持EWA的能力，以应对不同的社区需求和负责任的档案战略，随着这个全球用户社区的增长的关键。他们将在必要时在EWA和其贡献社区之间提供知识渊博的人的界面。因此，拟议的项目旨在为EWA建立一个管理员网络，将这一档案资源的覆盖范围扩大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，但公众和社区的参与对EWA的成功至关重要，因为：a）它是一个公开提交（众包）信息的档案，通过EWA与更大的社区共享，而不是捐赠给更大的社区; B）它旨在肯定和支持当地在自然保护方面的努力; c）从长远来看，众包融资对维护档案很重要。这些关切要求在EWA及其策展人网络的工作方式中体现最强有力的道德原则，允许提交信息的各种许可条件，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。重要的是，EWA必须对不同的文化敏感性做出回应，并允许与个人和/或社区愿望相一致的不同程度的社区参与，认识到最终他们有权选择是否与更广泛的受众分享他们的知识。该项目的主要成果将是1）至少30名志愿策展人的种子网络，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，并接受过伦理使用EWA的培训; 2）概述策展管理指导方针和战略的文件，有多种语言版本; 3）数字化和翻译的策展人培训材料图书馆，也有多种语言版本; 4）一个有效的和可扩展的数据库，用于有效的策展人管理; 5）研究出版物;和6）在国际会议上的第一个策展人研讨会。

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.