Heritage Guard Network

Heritage Guard Network (HGN): Empowering Communities to Safeguard Cultural and Natural Treasures through Crowdsourced Digital Efforts aims to create long-term, sustainable networks that compile, build, and share best practices on how to successfully crowdsource data and information on cultural and natural heritage in danger.

Homepage

Working Groups

Aim

The aim of the proposed project is to compile knowledge and develop best practices for how to use Wikimedia platforms to digitally preserve and make available to the public cultural and natural heritage in danger. The project will create a large possibility for building partnerships, both within and outside the Wikimedia community, to this end. These partnerships will enable more efficient work to work strategically around what information to collect and combine to create the largest possible impact of our work and how to get hold of that information.

The idea is to focus on cultural and natural heritage, building partnerships and sharing skills to make the heritage available freely online through the Wikimedia platforms. The two domains, natural and cultural heritage, face similar challenges and risks when more information about them is made available online. The focus would benefit from the strong experiences that some of the actors involved have to build capacity across the region. Partnerships would include those between all Wikimedia affiliates involved in the project, the CEE hub and the Content Partnerships Hub, and the Wikimedia movement and relevant external actors.

Get involved

The aim of the activities is to develop analyses and recommendations on how to use crowdsourcing, especially through the Wikimedia platforms, for the digitization of cultural and natural heritage in danger. The result will be four papers dedicated to legal, engagement, risk and technology related aspects of the topic.

You can get involved in the development of these four papers! The aim of this pilot project to establish a long term network, where your continued engagement will be crucial. We are in the process of preparing future applications for the continuation of the project.

Sign up

If you represent an Organization (company, NGO, institution or other) and you would like to get involved please fill in this survey and we will get back to you as soon as possible: Partner Assessment Survey

If you want to join the project (especially the Working Groups) as a Volunteer please fill in this survey and we well get back to you as soon as possible: HGN Volunteer Survey

This is what you can do

Join a working group and participate in the working group meetings where you provide your input, feedback and experiences.
Present your knowledge and experience as part of one of the working group meetings.
Propose other potential partners, experts and volunteers that can join the project.
Add references and material to the resources page.
Take part in interviews and surveys with dedicated questions.
Contribute to the writing of final papers.
Review and give feedback on the final papers and their analysis.
If you have other ideas, let us know! Feel free to contact us at hgn wikimedia.ge

Formal partners

All formal project partners are independently registered national NGOs that are officially recognized as the national representatives of the international Wikimedia movement. Formal project partners (Wikimedia Sweden, Wikimedia Poland, Wikimedia UG Georgia, and Wikimedia Ukraine) and 2 Hub initiatives (Content Partnerships Hub and Central and Eastern European Hub) that are also involved in this partnership share mission and they occasionally exchange knowledge and experience when they meet during online workshops and conferences. Each partner has a long history of collaboration with museums, galleries, and educational and state institutions, as it is through cooperation that we are able to make more knowledge and content open and available online.

Final paper

File:Heritage Guard Network – Final Paper.pdf The final paper was launched during a final event in Warsaw 7 November 2024.

Funding

This project is funded by the Swedish Institute.