05/24/2024 – 22:27
Documentation centers are often seen as closed and exclusive spaces for academic researchers. The National Archives proposes to overcome this idea and make the collection more accessible and participatory. In this sense, the winners of HackathAN were announced this Friday (24), a competition that sought technological solutions to encourage the identification of digital documents by civil society.
A new platform will allow anyone to help improve the description of the online collection. With the large volume of documents arriving at the National Archives, it is not always possible to provide detailed information about them. This is where the proposal for active participation by the population and the valorization of public knowledge, specialized or not, comes into play.
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“Here at the National Archives we do not have all professionals from all areas. We have great archivists. And when you bring the public here, you bring experts in football, contemporary history, the history of cable cars, for example. These people will help us describe and make our digital objects more accurate”, explained Max Faria, general technology coordinator at the National Archives.
The name of the event is an adaptation of the term “hackathon”, replacing the last two letters with the acronym of the National Archives (AN). Events of this type are a kind of marathon that brings together programmers, designers and all types of professionals linked to software development. In a short space of time, it is necessary to present a technological solution to a challenge proposed by the organizers.
At HackathAn, there were 237 entries from 21 different states, plus the Federal District and one entry from Venezuela. 31 teams were formed and 24 projects were delivered. Three teams participated in today’s awards. The three best placed received, respectively, R$5,000, R$3,000 and R$2,000.
“Today we celebrate innovation, creativity, and the dedication of talented minds who came together to face real challenges, with innovative solutions. HackathAn is the first event of this nature promoted by the National Archives and it was truly a success. During the period of challenges, we saw teams dedicating themselves intensely to developing projects, which are not only intended to solve current problems, but also to open paths for a more effective and technological future in our institution”, said Gecilda Esteves, deputy general director of the Archive National.
Winners
The winning team of the competition was made up of Anita Lucchesi, Bruno Buccalon, Martim Passos and Yuri Pereira. They are professionals from different areas such as Journalism, History, Architecture and Design, who have knowledge in the area of programming. The group’s project is called “My Archive”, aimed precisely at bringing people closer to the institution and the collection.
Their project involves gamification and different interactive dynamics, inspired by projects in the area of citizen science. Those who voluntarily add descriptions to digital documents will gain distinctive levels on the platform and will be able to track all their metrics: how many and which documents they described, and in which categories.
“The National Archive belongs to everyone, because this memory belongs to everyone. It is important to affectively approach the history and memory contained in the collection. We want to invite the population to participate in something that may seem a little boring, working with description. But the way you present it and invite people to participate can be interesting. Someone from civil society, passionate about a specific topic in history, can contribute and enrich the description of the collection”, explained historian Anita Lucchesi, specialist in Digital Public History.
As it is a collaborative and inclusive project, there is also concern about the quality and accuracy of the knowledge that will be available online. Open platforms always run the risk of receiving false or biased content. The event organizers intend to set up different devices to validate this knowledge to avoid problems.
“After the descriptions are made, there will be a ‘citizen seal’, an indication that the content available on the website has not yet been validated by the National Archives. He will join a queue. At some point, because we have limited people here, the National Archives professional will be able to validate whether that information is correct. And when that happens, that content will receive a different seal from the National Archives”, says technology coordinator, Max Faria.
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