Transcribe Bentham

Transcribe Bentham was launched in September 2010. The project makes available, via a transcription interface based on a customised MediaWiki, high-quality digital images of UCL's vast collection of unpublished manuscripts written and composed by the philosopher and reformer, Jeremy Bentham, which runs to some 60,000 manuscript folios (an estimated 30,000,000 words). Under the Mellon Foundation grant, the remainder of the UCL Bentham Papers were digitised, along with all of the British Library's own collection of Bentham manuscripts, some 12,500 manuscript folios (or an estimated 6,000,000 words).

The project recruits volunteers to assist in transcribing the material, and thereby contribute to the Bentham Project's production of the new edition of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. Volunteer-produced transcripts are also uploaded to UCL's digital Bentham Papers repository,{{Cite web |last=UCL |date=2018-09-04 |title=Bentham Manuscripts |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/digital-collections/collections/bentham |access-date=2022-07-22 |website=Library Services |language=en}} in order to widen access to the collection, and ensure its long-term preservation.

Volunteers can sign-up for a user account at the Transcription Desk.Transcribe Bentham Transcription Desk, http://www.transcribe-bentham.da.ulcc.ac.uk/td/Transcribe_Bentham Once registered, they are given transcriber privileges. The volunteer then selects a manuscript, and is presented with a manuscript image alongside a free-text box, into which he or she enters their transcript (which can be saved at any time). Volunteers are also asked to add some basic formatting to their transcripts, and encode their work in Text-Encoding Initiative-compliant XML using a specially designed transcription toolbar. Using this, the volunteer can highlight a piece of text, or a position in the text, and click a button on the toolbar to identify a particular characteristic of that chosen portion. These include line breaks, paragraphs, unusual spellings, and frequent additions, deletions and marginalia present in the manuscripts.

When a volunteer is happy with his or her transcript, it is submitted to Transcribe Bentham project staff for checking. Changes are made to the text and code, if necessary, and staff decide whether or not the transcript has been completed to a satisfactory degree for uploading to the digital repository. If it is decided that no further appreciable improvements can be made, the transcript is locked for further editing and converted to an XML file. However, if staff decide that a submitted transcript is incomplete - i.e. if it is partially transcribed, or there are a number of missing or unclear words - then it will remain unlocked for further crowdsourcing.

Work is currently ongoing to make improvements and modifications to the transcription interface.

As of 4 January 2019, volunteers had transcribed or partially transcribed 21,307 manuscripts - around 10.5 million words - of which 94% were of the required standard to form a basis for editorial work, and to be uploaded to the digital repository. Monthly progress updates are issued via the Transcribe Bentham blog.{{Cite web |title=UCL Transcribe Bentham |url=https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham/ |access-date=2022-07-22 |website=blogs.ucl.ac.uk}}

The work of Transcribe Bentham has been reported upon by the international media. This coverage includes a feature article in The New York Times,{{Cite news |last=Cohen |first=Patricia |date=2010-12-27 |title=Scholars Recruit Public for Project |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/books/28transcribe.html |access-date=2022-07-22 |issn=0362-4331}} The Sunday Times,R. Kinchen, 'One Stir and I'll Discover a Galaxy', 12 September 2011, http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article772703.ece {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121203143848/http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article772703.ece |date=3 December 2012 }} The Chronicle of Higher Education,T. Kaya, Crowdsourcing Project Hopes to Make Short Work of Transcribing Bentham, 13 September 2010, http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/crowdsourcing-project-hopes-to-make-short-work-of-transcribing-bentham/26829 Deutsche Welle WorldR. Powell, 'Philosophy Fans Pitch in to put British thinker's manuscripts online', 4 February 2011, http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,14809726,00.html and http://www.dw.de/popups/popup_single_mediaplayer/0,,14808024_start_0_end_0_type_audio_struct_3126_contentId_6424149,00.html radio, and Austria's ORF1 radio.'Create Your World', 25 July 2011, http://oe1.orf.at/programm/280040, and Matrix, 29 January 2012, http://oe1.orf.at/programm/294290

In September 2011, Transcribe Bentham was honoured with an Award of Distinction in the Digital Communities category of the Prix Ars Electronica, the world's foremost digital arts competition.{{Cite web|url=http://archive.aec.at/#42434|title = Ars Electronica Archiv}} In its report, the Digital Communities jury noted that the Transcribe Bentham transcription interface has 'the potential to become a standard tool for scholarly crowdsourcing projects', and that Transcribe Bentham as a whole has the 'potential to create the legacy of participatory education and the preservation of heritage or an endangered culture'.B. Achaleke, G. Harwood, A. Koblin, L. Yan, and T. Peixoto, 'Guinea pigs and apples: statement of the Digital Communities Jury', in H. Leopoldseder, C. Schöpf, and G. Stocker, Prix Ars Electronica International Compendium: CyberArts 2011, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, p. 206.

Transcribe Bentham was also nominated for the 2011 Digital Heritage Award,{{Cite web|url=http://rose-holley.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/digital-cultural-heritage-awards-for.html|title = Rose Holley's Blog - views and news on digital libraries and archives: Digital Cultural Heritage Awards for Crowdsourcing (And thoughts on gamification)|date = 4 February 2012}} along with:

• the National Library of Finland's DigitalKoot
• Old Weather
• the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Remember Me
• the National Library of Australia's Trove

In November 2012, Transcribe Bentham came second in the Knetworks 'Platforms for Networked Innovation Competition',{{Cite web |url=http://knetworks.eu/competition-winners |title=Competition winners | knetworks |access-date=26 November 2012 |archive-date=23 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130523085545/http://knetworks.eu/competition-winners |url-status=dead }} which sought to identify the 'most innovative web-based platform enabling regional innovation for public, private or research organizations'.{{Cite web |url=http://knetworks.eu/ |title=Welcome | knetworks |access-date=26 November 2012 |archive-date=23 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121023134522/http://www.knetworks.eu/ |url-status=dead }}

Transcribe Bentham was featured on BBC Radio 4's PM programmeRadio 4 PM report, 27 August 2013, https://audioboo.fm/boos/1570749-how-a-recipe-intended-for-inmates-of-bentham-s-proposed-panopticon-prison-is-making-its-way-onto-a-modern-restaurant-menu and the BBC News website{{Cite news |title=Cooking an 18th Century 'prison pie' |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-23794247 |access-date=2022-07-22}} on 27 August 2013. The report discussed how volunteers transcribed a series of recipes which were collated for Bentham's proposed panopticon prison, and how one - a 'Devonshire Pie' consisting of potatoes, tripe, onions, spleen, lungs, and gooseberries - was made by the Michelin-starred St John Smithfield restaurant. The recipes were published in 2014 as Jeremy Bentham's Prison Cooking: A Collection of Utilitarian Recipes.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bentham-project/publications/jeremy-benthams-prison-cooking|title=Jeremy Bentham's Prison Cooking|last=UCL|date=2018-05-17|website=Bentham Project|language=en|access-date=2019-01-17}}

The code for Transcribe Bentham's MediaWiki-based transcription interface is available for reuse and customisation, on an open source basis.{{Cite web|url=https://code.google.com/p/tb-transcription-desk/|title=Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting}} It has been implemented by the Public Record Office Victoria for their pilot transcription project.{{Cite web |url=http://wiki.prov.vic.gov.au/index.php/Category:PROV_Transcription_Pilot_Project |title=Category:PROV Transcription Pilot Project - Public Record Office Victoria |access-date=13 April 2012 |archive-date=27 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120427061918/http://wiki.prov.vic.gov.au/index.php/Category:PROV_Transcription_Pilot_Project |url-status=dead }}

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite journal |first1=Tim |last1=Causer |first2=Justin |last2=Tonra |first3=Valerie |last3=Wallace |title=Transcription maximized; expense minimized? Crowdsourcing and editing The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham |journal=Literary and Linguistic Computing |volume=27 |issue=2 |year=2012 |pages=119–137 |doi=10.1093/llc/fqs004 |url=http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/03/28/llc.fqs004.short?rss=1&%3bssource=mfr |hdl=10379/6269 |hdl-access=free }}
• {{cite journal |first1=Tim |last1=Causer |first2=Valerie |last2=Wallace |title=Building a volunteer community: results and findings from Transcribe Bentham |journal=Digital Humanities Quarterly |volume=6 |issue=2 |year=2012 |url=http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/6/2/000125/000125.html }}

• {{Official website}}

{{University College London|academics}}

Category:Crowdsourcing

Category:Transcription (linguistics)

Category:Digital media works about philosophy

Category:University College London

Category:Jeremy Bentham