Gamification of the heritage domain : crowdsourcing with gameful design

A growing number of institutions in the heritage sector started to investigate the possibilities of communicating their digitised collections with the public and seizing the opportunities by applying different crowdsourcing approaches. The efforts are often gathered under the notion of citizen science, where projects enlist the help of volunteers to solve challenging scientific research problems. One of the ways to provide users with an opportunity to deeply explore, connect with and contribute to public memory is to employ the principles of gamification, in the process of connecting digitized materials with the users. This paper explores the idea of applying gameful design in the process of communicating digitized online collections within the wider field of crowdsourcing and citizen science. The first part provides a theoretical background on the notion of gamification, setting the framework for applying gamification in the heritage domain. The second part focuses on the applications of gamification within the heritage domain and based on the projects examined. The final part gives recommendations on how citizen science and gameful design can be successfully implemented