2.08 The collaborative loop: Engaging with community feedback

Feedback as an ethical imperative

A cultural heritage project created in isolation, without the input of the community it aims to represent, is fundamentally incomplete. Engaging community members – especially the narrators, their families, and local cultural experts – in the review of your draft exhibit is a vital ethical and practical step. This is not simply a final check for errors; it is a continuation of the collaborative spirit that must underpin the entire project. This practice aligns directly with the UNESCO principles of ensuring community involvement and ownership over their own heritage.

Meaningful feedback helps to check for factual accuracy, ensure cultural appropriateness, and, most importantly, foster a powerful sense of shared stewardship over the final collection.

AI for facilitating feedback

Knowing what questions to ask to elicit thoughtful feedback can be challenging. An AI assistant can be very helpful in drafting a set of open-ended questions to guide your review process.

Prompt:

Act as a community engagement facilitator for the HER[AI]TAGE project. I am preparing to share a draft of our digital story collection with community members for their feedback. Generate a list of 5-7 open-ended questions I can ask them to encourage thoughtful and constructive feedback. The questions should cover accuracy, feeling, and overall impression.

Example AI-generated feedback questions:

1. Looking at the story and the illustrations we have created, how well do you feel they capture the spirit and feeling of the memories that were originally shared?
2. Is there any information in the summary or the descriptions that seems inaccurate or that you remember differently? We welcome any corrections you might have.
3. Was there anything in this presentation that surprised you or taught you something new about your own community’s history?
4. If we were to share this collection with young people in our community, is there anything you think we should add or explain differently to help them connect with these important stories?
5. In your opinion, what is the most important part of this story that you believe future generations should remember?
6. Are there any important details, perspectives, or feelings missing from this presentation that you feel should be included to make the story more complete?
7. Overall, what is your impression of this presentation? How does it make you feel to see these stories from our community shared in this way?

AI demonstration: Summarising feedback

After a feedback session, you will likely have a collection of notes, forms, and emails. Manually analysing this qualitative data can be time-consuming. AI can help you process this information efficiently by summarising key themes and identifying recurring suggestions. Modern AI-powered feedback analysis tools use techniques like sentiment analysis (detecting positive, negative, or neutral tone) and thematic analysis (identifying and grouping common topics) to distil feedback into clear action points.

Platforms like Revuze, MonkeyLearn, or Medallia are designed for this kind of analysis.

Prompt:

Here is a collection of raw comments from our community feedback session. Please analyse them for sentiment and summarise the feedback into 3-4 key thematic action points for our project team.

Comments: “The story about the flood was very powerful, it really brought back memories. The illustration for the fishing weir was not quite right, the posts were thicker and made of oak. Everyone loved seeing the old photo of the schoolhouse, that was a wonderful touch! Ana’s daughter mentioned we should add a small map showing where the old ferry crossing was, as younger people don’t know. Multiple people said the audio was very clear and moving.”

Example AI response (summarised action points):

Based on the provided feedback, here is a summary of key themes and actionable points:

• Positive emotional impact: The feedback indicates a strong positive and nostalgic emotional connection to the content. The flood story and the narrator’s audio were highlighted as particularly moving and effective. The inclusion of historical photographs was also very well-received. Action: Retain these elements as core strengths of the exhibit.
• Visual accuracy correction: A key piece of constructive feedback points to a factual inaccuracy in a visual asset. Action: Revise the illustration of the fishing weir to depict thicker, oak posts, ensuring greater historical accuracy.
• Request for contextual enhancement: There is a clear suggestion to add geographical context to improve understanding for a wider audience, particularly younger viewers. Action: Incorporate a map that shows the historical location of the old ferry crossing.
• Technical quality affirmation: The audio quality was positively noted as being clear and moving. Action: Maintain this high standard for all other audio clips produced for the project.

By systematically gathering, analysing with AI assistance, and acting on community feedback, you close the collaborative loop. This ensures your project is not just about the community, but truly with and for the community, resulting in a final product that is a respectful and authentic reflection of the heritage you set out to preserve.