TCF Roles and Procedures

There are six roles to be fulfilled in any challenge:

  1. Challenge Coordinator(s) – see further details
    1. Text. Selects text and delivers IIIF links and catalogue records to the TCF transcription portal.
    2. Digital Presence. Creates the central and team web pages for a Challenge.
    3. Personnel. Identifies team captains and judges.
    4. Management. Answers questions and solves problems as the event unfolds.
    5. Final Submissions. Coordinates handoff of submissions between teams and judges.
    6. Publicity. Promotes the Challenge via social media and other discipline-specific outlets before, during, and after it occurs.
    7. Post-event Scholarship. Facilitates second phase projects when interest arises.
    8. Project Archiving. Documents and archives Challenge activities and digital objects in a digital repository. May be completed in cooperation with a Project Archivist.
  1. Editor-Captains (minimum 2 per team) 
    1. Team Building. Captains recruit members for their team. Teams should ideally be in place at least 24 hours before the competition begins.
    2. Team Organization. At least 1 team meeting should take place to assign pages to individual team members for transcription and review, and to plan out transcription tasks and timing.
    3. Small Reports on Team Progress and Activities. Team captains must post a total of at least 4 updates to the team page. These posts can be authored by anyone.
    4. Editorial sign-off. Once all transcriptions have been prepared and reviewed in accordance with the transcription norms established  by the team members and recorded in the team’s transcription statement, an editor must give a final sign off. Editors and captains are often the same people, but captains may designate other team members as editors for the purpose of final sign off. 
    5. Submission Preparation. Captains will prepare and submit the following 4 items for submission to the judges:
      1. Link to the transcription (locked upon team completion); 
      2. Team transcription log;
      3. Team transcription statement; 
      4. A minimum of 4 (four) small reports/updates on the team webpage. 
  1. Transcriber-Reviewers (maximum 10 per team, including captains)
    1. Transcription and Review. Team members should transcribe and review the materials assigned to them within the 2-week transcription period, or following the schedule established by the team captain(s).
    2. Communication. Team members should use the transcription log or other team-sponsored channels (slack, twitter, etc.) to consider and resolve transcription queries as they arise.
  1. Social Media Promoters – at least one person per team should agree to promote the Challenge via one or more social media outlets.
  1. Judges 
    1. Timing. Judges should render their decisions within one month of Challenge completion.
    2. Announcement. Judges may issue their decisions in whatever way they see fit, according to the criteria of accuracy, speed, and collaboration put forth in the TCF.
  1. Project Archivists will work with the Challenge Coordinator to organize, catalogue, and store all project data in an open-access digital repository, and to disseminate the bibliographic details to all project participants. This allows for proper credit to be assigned, and increases the findability and citability of the Challenge outcomes.