DoeDat, the Crowdsourcing Platform of Meise Botanic Garden

By

Groom, Quentin
Desmedt, Sofie
Veríssimo Pereira, Nuno
Bogaerts, Ann
Engledow, Henry

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2018-6-15

Original Publication

Metabarcoding and metagenomics

Volume

2

Pages

1--2

Subjects

Citizen science , Crowdsourcing , Herbarium specimens , transcription , volunteer programs

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers 2017-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.2.26803

 

Abstract

Herbarium specimens hold a wealth of data about plants; where they come from, where they were collected and by whom. Once digitized, these data can be searched, mapped and compared. However, the information on specimens is often handwritten and even the best software systems cannot read it. This is where we get real value from citizen involvement. Digitizing these data is only possible with the aid of human intelligence.<br> DoeDat is a multilingual open-source platform for transcription, based upon the DigiVol program of the Australian Museum and Atlas of Living Australia. DoeDat is a product of our digitization project Digital Access to Cultural Heritage Collections (DOE!), funded by the Flemish Government. DoeDat is about creating data and also, ‘Doe Dat’ means ‘do that’ in Dutch.<br> DoeDat will help us digitize our collections, and will also give the public the chance to take an active part in the process. We aim to build a community of enthusiastic online volunteers who will help us liberate botanical data from specimen labels and documents. We launched the platform on Science Day and within two months, more than one hundred volunteers had transcribed more than 4,000 specimens.<br> Join in at www.DoeDat.be