"Going Online with Care"

The collection of the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich counts more than 60’000 holdings (see "Box by Box" for a visual overview). We aim to publish the collection online by 2028. Sharing ethnographic collections online is a current priority, and in doing so we intend to improve transparency, enhance digital access, and enable future collaborations.

However, publishing a collection online also requires caution, and raises ethical dilemmas. Many objects in our collection hold sacred values, their usage and access is restricted to specific communities, or their museums records contain inaccurate language (see the project "Naming Together" on the topic of object names). Unrestricted digital access to our ethnographic collection may therefore risk misinterpretation, inappropriate use, or cultural harm.

With this in mind, the leading questions of this research project are: How can we make collections as open as possible, while restricting or contextualising access where openness may cause harm?

This project aims to establish best working practices to evaluate data that require careful handling due to its cultural sensitivity and to assess responsibly how to publish it online. Through consultation with partners and external researchers, we identify categories of culturally sensitive data and analyze the connected concerns and risks for each case.

To identify potentially culturally sensitive data in out collection we are collaborating with the Linguistic Research Infrastructure LiRi at the University of Zurich, who designed a large language model specifically trained to find relevant sensitive cases in our database, to sort them into our categories and to flag them to be treated as sensitive.

To establish a transparent, repeatable workflow for ethically assessing sensitive data and avoid applying access restrictions on all sensitive categories unconditionally, we are developing a weighted multi-criteria decision matrix. Thanks to this targeted approach, we are able to suggest best working practices for each sensitive category and assign the most suitable digital access degree over a spectrum of four options: 

Highly Restricted – Partially Restricted – Mainly Accessible – Fully Accessible

Funded by Open Science swissuniverstities, this project aims to establish ways to ethically balance the benefits of digital access with respect to the cultures and communities from which these collections originate.  

The project aims to benefit source communities and partners by supporting the ethical and culturally appropriate digital sharing of data connected to their heritage. It will support museum staff in making informed decisions about what and how data is made accessible online, while giving the public greater access to our collections and raising awareness of data use, rights and responsibilities. By sharing our approaches and tools, the project will also support other museums working with sensitive data and contribute to more ethical and transformative digital practices across the museum sector.

Duration:
January 2026 – January 2027

Support:
Third Party Research Funding from swissuniversities PgB OpenScience II, Open Research Data (ORD)

Project team at the museum:
Sofia Bollo (project lead)
Marina Berazategui
Joris Burla
Alice Hertzog
Jonas Lendenmann
Daniela Zurbrügg

Research partners:
LiRI – Linguistic Research Infrastructure
Local Contexts – Grounding Indigenous Digital Rights 

Project advisors:
Femi Johnson
Diana Quadri
studiyo filipino