Earlier this week we ran a 1980s-inspired crowdsourcing ‘Metadata Game’ to enhance the description of items within our online image collection http://images.is.ed.ac.uk. The good folk of Library and University Collections rallied to the cause and ten hardy volunteers surrendered their lunch breaks to take part in the session, sustained only by coffee, biscuits and a will to succeed.

Each participant was provided with a series of random images and received one ‘crowdsourcing point’ for every person, object or location they tagged. Can you spot a familiar face in one of the randomly-generated images below?

Once the tagging was complete, the group then moderated the submitted terms and further points were awarded for approved tags. In the course of the session, 264 images were tagged a total of 631 times and, although time ran out during the moderation phase because of issues with load on the software, we learned a lot about the programme and received useful feedback for future sessions.

Norman Rodger from the Projects & Innovations team ran out the clear winner on this occasion, with 221 points, but he was pushed all the way by Sandi Phillips and Clare Button, who finished second and third with 155 and 146 points respectively.

We’ll be setting up the game again at the Pop Up Library during Freshers’ Week so come along and find us if you’re interested in having a go for yourself! Or if you’re anxious to have a shot now, please email gavin.willshaw@ed.ac.uk or scott.renton@ed.ac.uk and we’d be happy to send you the link. Maybe you can even set a new high score…