BlogForever D3.2: Interoperability Prospects

This report evaluates the interoperability prospects of the BlogForever platform. Therefore, existing interoperability models are reviewed, a Delphi study to identify crucial aspects for the interoperability of web archives and digital libraries is conducted, technical interoperability standards and protocols are reviewed regarding their relevance for BlogForever, a simple approach to consider interoperability in specific usage scenarios is proposed, and a tangible approach to develop a succession plan that would allow a reliable transfer of content from the current digital archive to other digital repositories is presented

LIBER's involvement in supporting digital preservation in member libraries

Digital curation and preservation represent new challenges for universities. LIBER has invested considerable effort to engage with the new agendas of digital preservation and digital curation. Through two successful phases of the LIFE project, LIBER is breaking new ground in identifying innovative models for costing digital curation and preservation. Through LIFE’s input into the US-UK Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access, LIBER is aligned with major international work in the economics of digital preservation. In its emerging new strategy and structures, LIBER will continue to make substantial contributions in this area, mindful of the needs of European research libraries

The LIFE2 final project report

Executive summary: The first phase of LIFE (Lifecycle Information For E-Literature) made a major contribution to understanding the long-term costs of digital preservation; an essential step in helping institutions plan for the future. The LIFE work models the digital lifecycle and calculates the costs of preserving digital information for future years. Organisations can apply this process in order to understand costs and plan effectively for the preservation of their digital collections The second phase of the LIFE Project, LIFE2, has refined the LIFE Model adding three new exemplar Case Studies to further build upon LIFE1. LIFE2 is an 18-month JISC-funded project between UCL (University College London) and The British Library (BL), supported by the LIBER Access and Preservation Divisions. LIFE2 began in March 2007, and completed in August 2008. The LIFE approach has been validated by a full independent economic review and has successfully produced an updated lifecycle costing model (LIFE Model v2) and digital preservation costing model (GPM v1.1). The LIFE Model has been tested with three further Case Studies including institutional repositories (SHERPA-LEAP), digital preservation services (SHERPA DP) and a comparison of analogue and digital collections (British Library Newspapers). These Case Studies were useful for scenario building and have fed back into both the LIFE Model and the LIFE Methodology. The experiences of implementing the Case Studies indicated that enhancements made to the LIFE Methodology, Model and associated tools have simplified the costing process. Mapping a specific lifecycle to the LIFE Model isn’t always a straightforward process. The revised and more detailed Model has reduced ambiguity. The costing templates, which were refined throughout the process of developing the Case Studies, ensure clear articulation of both working and cost figures, and facilitate comparative analysis between different lifecycles. The LIFE work has been successfully disseminated throughout the digital preservation and HE communities. Early adopters of the work include the Royal Danish Library, State Archives and the State and University Library, Denmark as well as the LIFE2 Project partners. Furthermore, interest in the LIFE work has not been limited to these sectors, with interest in LIFE expressed by local government, records offices, and private industry. LIFE has also provided input into the LC-JISC Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Economic Sustainability of Digital Preservation. Moving forward our ability to cost the digital preservation lifecycle will require further investment in costing tools and models. Developments in estimative models will be needed to support planning activities, both at a collection management level and at a later preservation planning level once a collection has been acquired. In order to support these developments a greater volume of raw cost data will be required to inform and test new cost models. This volume of data cannot be supported via the Case Study approach, and the LIFE team would suggest that a software tool would provide the volume of costing data necessary to provide a truly accurate predictive model

ANCIL in action: progress updates on A New Curriculum for Information Literacy

Secker & Coonan’s 2011 research on A New Curriculum for Information Literacy (ANCIL) positions information literacy as a vital, holistic and institution-wide element in academic teaching and learning. Rather than taking a competency-based approach in which abilities and performance levels are delineated prescriptively, ANCIL is founded on a perception of information literacy as a continuum of skills, competences, behaviours and values around information, centred in an individual learner engaged in a specific task or moving towards a particular goal. ANCIL offers both micro- and macro-level approaches to reviewing the information literacy support offered in an institution. With its emphasis on active, reflective and transferable elements in learning, ANCIL lends itself well to practical course design and lesson planning. By reviewing the structure and content of individual sessions through the ANCIL lens, it is possible to enhance information literacy teaching significantly even where provision is restricted to one-shot or front-loaded training sessions. In addition, ANCIL’s holistic mapping of information literacy, together with the interprofessional and collaborative approach this entails, allows departments or whole institutions to audit where, how and when provision is offered to and encountered by the student in the course of his or her learning career.The original ANCIL project research was supported by the Arcadia Programme at Cambridge University Library

Usability evaluation of digital libraries: a tutorial

This one-day tutorial is an introduction to usability evaluation for Digital Libraries. In particular, we will introduce Claims Analysis. This approach focuses on the designers’ motivations and reasons for making particular design decisions and examines the effect on the user’s interaction with the system. The general approach, as presented by Carroll and Rosson(1992), has been tailored specifically to the design of digital libraries. Digital libraries are notoriously difficult to design well in terms of their eventual usability. In this tutorial, we will present an overview of usability issues and techniques for digital libraries, and a more detailed account of claims analysis, including two supporting techniques – simple cognitive analysis based on Norman’s ‘action cycle’ and Scenarios and personas. Through a graduated series of worked examples, participants will get hands-on experience of applying this approach to developing more usable digital libraries. This tutorial assumes no prior knowledge of usability evaluation, and is aimed at all those involved in the development and deployment of digital libraries

Open Access Metadata for Journals in Directory of Open Access Journals: Who, How, and What Scheme?

Open access (OA) is a form of publication that allows some level of free access to scholarly publications. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a repository to which OA journals may apply and upload content to increase discoverability. OA also refers to metadata that is freely available for harvesting. In making metadata open access, standards for schemes and protocols are needed to facilitate interoperability. For open access journals, such as those listed in the DOAJ, providing open access metadata in a form that promotes interoperability is essential for discoverability of their content. This paper investigates what standards exist or are emerging, who within journals is creating the metadata for DOAJ journals, and how are those journals and DOAJ sharing the metadata for articles. Moreover, since creating metadata requires specialized knowledge of both librarians and programmers, it is imperative that journals wanting to publish with OA metadata formulate plans to coordinate these experts and to be sure their efforts are compatible with current standards and protocols

Integrating Authentic Digital Resources in Support of Deep, Meaningful Learning

"Integrating Authentic Digital Resources in Support of Deep, Meaningful Learning," a white paper prepared for the Smithsonian by Interactive Educational Systems Design Inc., describes instructional approaches that apply to successful teaching with the Smithsonian Learning Lab.After defining its use of terms such as deeper learning and authentic resources the authors review the research basis of three broad approaches that support integrating digital resources into the classroom:Project-based learningGuided exploration of concepts and principlesGuided development of academic skillsThese approaches find practical application in the last section of the paper, which includes seven case studies. Examples range from first-grade science, to middle-school English (including ELL strategy) to a high-school American government class. In each example, students study and analyze digital resources, going on to apply their knowledge and deepen their understanding of a range of topics and problems

Fostering open science practice through recognising and rewarding research data management and curation skills

In a bid to improve research integrity, drive innovation, increase knowledge and to maximize public investment, researchers are increasingly under pressure to work in a more open and transparent way. This movement has been referred to as open science. Open science offers a range of potential and measurable benefits – for researchers and the institutions that employ them as well as for society more generally. However, to realise these benefits, we must work towards changing current research practices and behaviours. Researchers will need to acquire new research data management and curation skills that enable them to undertake a broader range of tasks along the entire research lifecycle – from undertaking new means of collaboration, to implementing data management and sharing strategies, to understanding how to amplify and monitor research outputs and to assess their value and impact. In parallel, information professionals who work to support researchers and the open science process will also need to expand their research data management and curation skillsets. It will be equally important that current recognition and reward systems are amended to reflect the application of such skillsets within a range of disciplines. This paper will explore the potential role that librarians can play in supporting and progressing open science and discuss some of the new skills that librarians may require if they are to fulfil this role effectively. Citing examples from the current UK research landscape, this paper will map these skills to the Wellcome Trust and Digital Science’s CRediT Taxonomy which was developed in 2013 to enable the broad range of contributions involved in producing research outputs to be more consistently described and rewarded