Exploring research data management in the visual arts

This workshop will enable participants to explore the nature of research data in the visual arts and the essential elements of its appropriate management. For researchers, the effective management of research data helps validate and contextualise the outputs of artistic research, while at the same time supports the research method by enabling researchers to work more effectively and to mitigate against the risk of data lost. In addition, many funders now require data management plans to be submitted as part of the funding process. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and led by the Centre for Digital Scholarship (formerly VADS), at the University for the Creative Arts, and working in partnership with Falmouth University and the Glasgow School of Art, the VADS4R project is developing a series of tailored skills development workshops and materials on research data management in the visual arts. These are focused on the needs of early careers researchers and postgraduate students in the visual arts and will be piloted over the course of the academic year 2013-14

Exploring research data management in the visual arts

This workshop will enable participants to actively explore the nature of research data in the visual arts and the essential elements of its appropriate management. For researchers, the effective management of research data helps validate and contextualise the outputs of artistic research, while at the same time supports the research method by enabling researchers to work more effectively and to mitigate against the risk of data lost. In addition, many funders in the UK now require data management plans to be submitted as part of the funding process. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and led by the Centre for Digital Scholarship, a research centre of the University for the Creative Arts, and working in partnership with Falmouth University and the Glasgow School of Art, the VADS4R project is currently developing a series of tailored skills development workshops and materials on research data management in the visual arts. These are focused on the needs of early careers researchers and postgraduate students in the visual arts and will be piloted over the course of the current academic year. Through utilising this emerging knowledge and practice, participants will be given an opportunity to: > examine the nature of research data in the visual arts and why is it important and to whom; > learn about the key requirements of good research data management and what to consider when when planning your own approach; > explore the vital elements of the data management planning to help support your funding proposals. The workshop will consist of a mixture of presentations and participant led activities. It will be an abridged version of the full program currently being piloted but it will offer an introduction to this vast and complex area, and participants will be able to access to the online toolkits for independent review following the session

From KAPTUR to VADS4R: Exploring Research Data Management in the Visual Arts

Across the higher education sector, research councils, organizations, teams, and researchers are under pressure to make publicly funded research data freely available, and in line with the Research Councils UK guidance. Publication of data resulting from the research is increasingly a requirement of funding. Equally important is data transparency and the ability for researchers to access data in order to test the validity and reliability of the research outputs and methods; to reinterpret and reuse data, thereby adding value to publicly funded research; and, ultimately, to access the data in the longer term. By its very nature, research in the visual arts is highly complex and varied, often comprising a wide variety of outputs and formats that present researchers, information managers, and technology teams with many discipline-specific issues. Examples include sketch books, paintings, architectural plans and buildings, physical artifacts, and complex modelling algorithms. Additionally, the methods and processes that generate this type of research information are just as varied and complex. Research in the visual arts relies heavily on sketchbooks, logbooks, journals, and workbooks. Alongside this data, a wide range of related research documentation and protocols (such as “how-to guides” and methodology reports) are also created. The physical nature of research in the arts presents researchers and curators with significant problems with security and preservation issues while also greatly increasing the risk of data loss and deterioration. Issues arise, for example, in the field of architecture. When data is locked up in the physical building that has been created as the output, how can this information be preserved and managed?JISC and AHR

From KAPTUR to VADS4R: Exploring Research Data Management in the Visual Arts

Research data is a valuable resource and, with appropriate curation and management, it has much to offer learning, teaching, research, knowledge transfer and consultancy in the visual arts. From the outset in 2011, the KAPTUR project team noted that very little was known about the curation and management of this data: none of the specialist arts institutions had research data management policies or infrastructure in place and evidence suggested that practice was ad hoc, left to individual researchers and teams with little support or guidance. In addition, the curation and management of such diverse and complex digital and physical resources presented unique challenges. Led by the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS), a Research Centre of the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), in collaboration with the Glasgow School of Art; Goldsmiths, University of London; and University of the Arts London, and supported by Jisc, the KAPTUR project (2011-2013) sought to address this lack of awareness. The objectives of the KAPTUR project were two-fold: to investigate the nature of research data in the visual arts and, to consider the application of technology to support collection, discoverability, usage, and preservation of research data in the arts. To support this, policies, procedures and systems were reviewed and case studies were developed to demonstrate emerging knowledge and practice. The project began with an environmental assessment which considered issues of terminology, the role of the visual arts researcher, how visual arts research data is created, used and preserved. Next, the technical review considered two questions. First, what did researchers need to support effective research data management in the visual arts? Second, what was the most appropriate technology solution to facilitate the appropriate management of research data in the visual arts? Following on, the Visual Arts Data Skills for Researchers (VADS4R) project is extending and developing this work, by tailoring these learning materials for use with early careers researchers and postgraduate students in the visual arts to inform, support and embed appropriate research data management practice across the visual arts. Led by the Centre for Digital Scholarship (formerly known as VADS), at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), and in collaboration with Falmouth University and Glasgow School of Art, VADS4R will develop, deliver, and evaluate a training programme at each partner institution. VADS4R runs from February 2013 to July 2014 and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The approach, method and lessons learnt from the project will be considered. In conclusion, research data in the visual arts can be: tangible and intangible; digital and physical; heterogeneous and infinite; and complex and complicated, and as such does not always fit into the natural scheme of data management. The development of policies, procedures, systems and training requires an innovative and flexible approach which is iterative and open to interpretation

KAPTUR: exploring the nature of visual arts research data and its effective management.

KAPTUR (2011-2013), funded by JISC and led by the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS), is a highly collaborative project involving four institutional partners: the Glasgow School of Arts; Goldsmiths, University of London; University for the Creative Arts; and the University of the Arts London. The preservation and publication of research data is seen as positive and all UK Research Councils now require it as a condition of funding (RCUK 2012). As a result a network of data repositories are emerging (DataCite 2012a), some funded by Research Councils, others by institutions themselves. However, research data management practice within the visual arts appears ad hoc. None of the specialist arts institutions within the UK has implemented research data management policies (DCC 2011a), nor established research data management systems. KAPTUR seeks to investigate the nature of visual arts research data, making recommendations for its effective management; develop a model of best practice applicable to both specialist arts institutions and arts departments in multidisciplinary institutions; and apply, test and refine the model with the four institutional partners. This paper will explore the nature of visual arts research data and how effective data management can ensure its long term usage, curation and preservation

Theorising the value of collage in exploring educational leadership

This article contributes to theorising the value of collage as a methodological approach. It begins with a discussion of the methodological difficulties of exploring hidden meanings and individual experience through the research process. The illuminative potential of arts-based methodologies in qualitative research is then investigated. The article makes the case for the specific advantages of using collage to explore the experience of leadership, through a discussion of two collage-based studies. It proposes a variant of the ‘think aloud’ process, used in conjunction with collage, as a route to producing deep understandings of the multiple ways in which leadership is experienced and understood as a social process. The argument is made that collage enables the accessing and sharing of profound levels of experience not accessible through words alone, and considers the impact of the physicality of collage on its potential to release these profound insights. A five-stage process for the analysis of collage is then set out. The article concludes by offering a theory of the value of collage as a methodological approach to exploring experiences of leadership, through use of the concepts of physicality, wholeness and participant agency.Peer reviewe

Visual art-making as a resource for living positively with arthritis: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of older women’s accounts

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Journal of Aging Studies. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2010 Elsevier B.V.This study explored whether and how visual art-making, as a leisure activity, provided a coping resource for older women affected by arthritis. Twelve older women (aged 62–81) were interviewed. They had lived with arthritis for many years, and engaged in arts and crafts regularly. Transcripts were explored through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Three main themes were identified. Firstly, most participants experienced art-making as a powerful means of controlling arthritis pain, through deep concentration, and through use of color and imagery. Secondly, participants experienced art-making as encouraging sustained attention to the outside world, offering psychological escape from the confines of the body and home. Thirdly, art-making protected and promoted identity, for example, through integrating current and former selves, enabling participants to express and re-experience certain valued memories, and engage in personal development. Some participants felt able to celebrate positive difference from others, on the basis of their art rather than their illness

Engaging youth in post-disaster research: Lessons learned from a creative methods approach

Children and youth often demonstrate resilience and capacity in the face of disasters. Yet, they are typically not given the opportunities to engage in youth-driven research and lack access to official channels through which to contribute their perspectives to policy and practice during the recovery process. To begin to fill this void in research and action, this multi-site research project engaged youth from disaster-affected communities in Canada and the United States. This article presents a flexible youth-centric workshop methodology that uses participatory and arts-based methods to elicit and explore youth’s disaster and recovery experiences. The opportunities and challenges associated with initiating and maintaining partnerships, reciprocity and youth-adult power differentials using arts-based methods, and sustaining engagement in post-disaster settings, are discussed. Ultimately, this work contributes to further understanding of the methods being used to conduct research for, with, and about youth.Keywords: youth, disaster recovery, engagement, resilience, arts-based methods, participatory researc

Exploring children's development of ideas in music and dance

Eisner maintains that the Arts education community needs ‘empirically grounded examples of artistic thinking related to the nature of the tasks students engage in, the material with which they work, the context’s norms and the cues the teacher provides to advance their students’ thinking’ (2000:217). This paper reflects on preliminary results of a collaborative research project between teachers and university researchers that is investigating how children develop and refine arts-making ideas and related skills in Dance and Music in a small sample of schools in New Zealand. Factors such as the place of repetition in the development of ideas, the relevance of offers, the place of verbal and non-verbal communication in arts idea generation, and group work as an accepted ritual of practice, are explored and discussed