Stereovision

1) What do I do if I don't understand how to complete a work flow or I'm not sure if I'm approaching a task the best way?

We'd recommend that before you begin a task on any of the three workflows to thoroughly read through the tutorial and to consult the Field Guide for our recommendations on best practice. For all our workflows, our Field Guide has different sections with guidance and advice on best practice to give you a really good understanding as to how we'd like you to approach the tasks. We'd also recommend heading to the Talk section of our project, where we have created the Troubleshooting board for you to post questions and queries if you get stuck at any point whilst completing the workflows.

We especially appreciate that our alt text/extended description workflow will take more time and patience in contrast to the others; we really want to emphasise we are not looking for perfection or in-depth technical knowledge – just give it your best shot! In addition, feel free to skip any images you find too difficult to describe. It's also not a problem if you feel like you might be repeating yourself on certain tasks - for example, the final task on the key word classification or the alt text/extended description workflow. We aren't concerned that that would affect the quality of the data. We would much rather receive your submission!

To reiterate, if you get stuck or need more information to guide you on any of our workflows, head to our Field Guide where we have included lots of information to help you formulate your responses. Furthermore, head to our Talk section where we have a Troubleshooting board where you can get in touch with us for any further clarification or support you need.

2) If there are three workflows, does it matter which one I start with first?
We've not implemented any restriction as to which workflow you start working on first. However, we would recommend that to become familiar with the collection, the "Classification: Hand coloured and living people" workflow is the most straightforward of the three and is a great way to set yourself up for the more in depth keywording and alt text/extended description workflows.

3) I've found something really interesting in one of the stereographs that I've seen. Where do I go to talk about something I've maybe identified/done further research on/ generally want to discuss the historical nature of the International Exhibition?
We're very much fascinated by the provenance of the stereographs themselves; lots of you who are drawn to this project will likely have an interest in the Victorian Era, the International Exhibition, stereophotography or just find the objects captured in these stereographs to be really fascinating!

We therefore have created three discussion boards on our Talk section.

General Discussion - this section is to have those great discussions on the general overview of the project and the broader historical and technological themes of the project. If there's any further research you've done, or you want to ask us more about our aims with the project or you're really fascinated by this period of stereophotography then this is the board to get those discussions going!

Troubleshooting - this is if you're having trouble completing a task and want to double check/discuss before you submit an answer or want to flag an issue with us.

Notes - this section is for anything you wish to highlight about a specific subject that you're working on or that you've noticed that you want to discuss. It could be a piece of information about a sculpture featured, an artists' name that you recognise, a manufacturing company's tag that you've seen in the background and done some research on that you want to talk about.

4) What's going to happen with the data I contribute?
Once we've completed the project and downloaded the final data report, we'll be integrating the data you've contributed to improve the accessibility and searchability of this collection of stereographs and improve the depth of information in our collections catalogue. Currently, our catalogue entries for the stereos include information on the stereos as objects in the collection, but almost no information on the objects and scenes depicted in the stereos themselves. As we have millions of objects in our collections, and thousands of objects digitised, our project is also a test to see how feasible it would be to crowdsource the writing of our alt text descriptions. Therefore with the data we gather from the project, we will be consulting organisations that work with blind and visually impaired groups to see if what we gather would be fit for purpose. Our results will then go on to inform our future work on improving accessibility. That's why we want to know what you would consider to be important or key features of a digitised image that should be included as part of an image description. Our project is a multi-faceted one, so we really appreciate your contributions!