Community Generated Digital Content -Our Heritage Our Stories

Connecting digital humanists, historians, computer scientists, and information professionals from across academic and Independent Research Organisation backgrounds, this panel explores key areas of future research identified throughout the Our Heritage, Our Stories (OHOS) project, elaborating on remaining challenges for research and innovation from a range of invested perspectives. Discussions reflect on research findings about the nature of Community Generated Digital Content (CGDC), its status within the archival sector (historically and contemporarily), where CGDC has been recognised and where it remains underappreciated, how we may collectively push for the improved recognition and representation of CGDC as a unique cultural asset, and how working with large complex datasets of CGDC has implications for data driven research and the development of AI tools and methods. It also addresses the challenges to carrying out research across the disciplines using CGDC, with examples from the different sectors and subject areas represented by the panellists. The panel also addresses the experiences of OHOS in bringing together differing areas of expertise and institutional/organisational stances, and how these experiences can help us better understand some of the challenges of interdisciplinary and cross-sector research.