Spot the Difference! Visual plagiarism in the visual arts.

Over recent years there has been considerable investment in the use of technology to identify sources of text-based plagiarism in universities. However, students of the visual arts are also required to complete numerous pieces of visual submissions for assessment, and yet very little similar work has been undertaken in the area of non-text based plagiarism detection. The Spot the Difference! project (2011-2012), funded by JISC and led by the University for the Creative Arts, seeks to address this gap by piloting the use of visual search tools developed by the University of Surrey and testing their application to support learning and teaching in the arts and specifically to the identification of visual plagiarism. Given that most commonly used search technologies rely on text, the identification and evidencing of visual plagiarism is often left to the knowledge and experience of academic staff, which can potentially result in inconsistency of detection, approach, policies and practices. This paper outlines the work of the project team, who sought to investigate the nature, scope and extent of visual plagiarism in the arts education sector

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

KAPTUR: technical analysis report

Led by the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) and funded by the JISC Managing Research Data programme (2011-13) KAPTUR will discover, create and pilot a sectoral model of best practice in the management of research data in the visual arts in collaboration with four institutional partners: Glasgow School of Art; Goldsmiths, University of London; University for the Creative Arts; and University of the Arts London. This report is framed around the research question: which technical system is most suitable for managing visual arts research data? The first stage involved a literature review including information gathered through attendance at meetings and events, and Internet research, as well as information on projects from the previous round of JISCMRD funding (2009-11). During February and March 2012, the Technical Manager carried out interviews with the four KAPTUR Project Officers and also met with IT staff at each institution. This led to the creation of a user requirement document (Appendix A), which was then circulated to the project team for additional comments and feedback. The Technical Manager selected 17 systems to compare with the user requirement document (Appendix B). Five of the systems had similar scores so these were short-listed. The Technical Manager created an online form into which the Project Officers entered priority scores for each of the user requirements in order to calculate a more accurate score for each of the five short-listed systems (Appendix C) and this resulted in the choice of EPrints as the software for the KAPTUR project

Look Here! building, embedding and sustaining digitisation practices in the visual arts.

Abstract Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) from October 2009 to February 2011 the Look Here! project is examining how we build, embed and sustain digitisation practice across the arts higher education sector in the UK. Led by the Visual Arts Data Service, a Research Centre at the University of the Creative Arts, the project consists of the seven partners: the Arts University College at Bournemouth, University of Brighton, the University of the Arts London, University College Falmouth and University of Southampton, and since its inception the project partners have been joined by two unfunded partners: the Royal School of Needlework and the Textile Archive, Bradford College. The project has three primary objectives: to support the embedding of digitisation practice within partner institutions; to creative a community to share skills and expertise; and to share emerging knowledge with the wider higher education community through a series of case studies, practitioner guides and workshops. It was envisaged that this would be achieved in four stages. The first stage, project initiation, saw the partners examine the Knitting Collections held by the University of Southampton and consider a number of issues relating to the digitisation of the collections, including: image selection, copyright, metadata, funding, hosting options and user requirements. The second stage involved modelling the digitisation processes, identifying replication and inefficiencies in practice, as well as the critical success factors required to embed and sustain practice at an institutional and sectorial level. The third stage, application, involves partners applying and testing the digitisation model within their own institutions, this process would also enable the model to be reviewed and revised as appropriate, and enable partners to identify gaps in knowledge and skills within the sector. The final stage, dissemination, will see the emerging knowledge and practice shared across the wider higher education sector to support the digitisation of images within the predominately text based disciplines. At the time of writing the project has been running for approximately six months and the partners have already held a series of workshops focusing on image selection, metadata and copyright, further sessions are planned for funding and commercialisation of collection, digitisation practices and sustainability. Community cohesion is high and all the partners are active both within the project and their host institutions sharing and embedding practice and identifying areas of common concern and ways forward. Longer term, the project is expected to have significant impact on both the partners and the wider higher education community. It will improve institutional capacity and effectiveness to digitise collections to support learning, teaching and research across the arts and, through the creation of the community of experts and the consultancy service, across the sector. Finally, the project will also raise awareness of the need and importance of digitisation processes within institutions and in the wider sector

UCARIS – making the most of your current resources

This paper outlines the work carried out by the project team over the last three years to develop an in-house current information management system, focused on the specific need to gather information from across various departmental databases to fulfil the research excellence framework requirements for a specialist arts institution. The overall objective of the project was to support the university's successful submission to the REF2014 in November 2013. The system was used to collate relevant information from various institutional databases and transfer this to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Submission System, thereby increasing institutional efficiency by reducing repetition of data entry and saving time in checking and organising information. The conference paper was published in Procedia Computer Science, Volume 33, 2014, Pages 153–157

Captivate: audience engagement and the digital image repository in the visual arts.

Primarily focused on the visual and creative arts, the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) provides a national repository for images, and provides free access at the point of use for learning, teaching and research across the higher education sector. The repository has grown dramatically over the last twelve years, in excess of 120,000 items are now held on behalf of over three hundred collection holders. Usage has also grown significantly, by 600% over the last five years, now 1.75 million images are viewed each month by repository users. In September 2008, with funding from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), VADS started work on extending the impact and engagement of the repository in three key ways: developing mechanisms to share data with other repositories and online archives; improving the user experience of the collections; and increasing access to and usage of collections. This paper will explore these three areas of work and their impact on usage of the image repository. The first key objective was to enhance the discoverability of the visual resources held by VADS. This was accomplished by the introduction of an OAI-PMH service, with additional work planned on assessing the potential of OpenSearch and RSS technologies. Although the image repository is widely used, it was felt that its reach could be both broadened and deepened. The second key objective was to establish how the wider academic community currently engaged with the collections and more importantly what tools and services they wanted to see in future. The research method centred on an online questionnaire of academic staff, both users and non-users of the image repository, this was supplemented by the follow up telephone interviews were appropriate. Over 400 responses were received and the outcomes are due for publication in September 2009. The last key objective involved increasing usage, although informed by the research programme this area has focused on services and tools which had been previously identified as essential to the development of the repository, this has included the development of a range of additional user-focused facilities such as user tagging; top level hierarchical subject taxonomy; and enhanced lightbox features. The project is due for completion in September 2009 and outcomes and impact will be measured as part of the evaluation process, but early indications are positive. The response from the sector has been enthusiastic and the release of the new tools and services are eagerly awaited, and promise to captivate and engage existing and new users

Spot the Difference! introducing iTrace, identifying visual plagiarism in the arts.

The University for the Creative Arts has a history in managing and creating digital resources to support learning & teaching in the creative arts environment. UCA's Library and Learning Services (LLS) has supported the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) at UCA for over 14 years, and more recently it has set up a new Digitisation Unit. This dual session will uncover some of the research, development and innovation that is being carried out by both these units within UCA Library and Learning Services.   VADS became a Research Centre of the University in 2008, where innovative and emerging issues relating to learning, teaching, and research with digital images are explored.  The team has led a range of externally-funded JISC projects in this area which are highly collaborative in nature, working with partners across the arts education sector. This session will introduce one such project, which is currently researching the complex and nebulous concept of ‘visual plagiarism’ as well as exploring what relevance and applicability that visual search technology may have in this area. Having set up a new Digitisation Unit within the Library, UCA has just embarked on an ambitious and innovative project which aims to increase the volume of material available to students in digital format, enabling them to access texts, image and time-based materials anytime, anywhere in the UK. In this part of the session the project will be introduced and discussed in the context of UCA’s emerging Digitisation Strategy, which is drawing from the experience, reputation and best practice that has developed within the Institution over the past decade

Err, what do I do with this? Exploring infrastructure requirements for visual arts researchers

A keynote presentation delivered at the Research Data Management Forum (RDMF10), University of Oxford, 3-4 September 2013. In recent times the principal focus for research data management protagonists has been upon scientific data, due perhaps to a combination of conspicuous Government or funder declarations with a bias towards the sciences and the very public consciousness of examples of 'big data', notably the output from CERN's Large Hadron Collider. That is not to say that developments in the management of arts and humanities data have been absent, merely occluded. RDMF10 aims to take some steps towards rectifying this situation, examining what it is about arts and humanities data that may require a different kind of handling to that given to other disciplines, how the needs for support, advocacy, training and infrastructure are being supplied and, consequently, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the current arrangements for data curation and sharing. The broad aims of the event were: to examine aspects of arts and humanities data that may require a different kind of handling to that given to other disciplines; to discuss how needs for support, advocacy, training and infrastructure are being described and met; and consequently, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the current arrangements for arts and humanities data curation and sharing, and brainstorm ways forward

JISC funded Kaptur project environmental assessment report

The overall objective of the JISC funded Kaptur project (October 2011 - March 2013) is to discover, create and pilot a sectoral model of best practice in the management of research data in the visual arts. This report outlines findings from the first workpackage, environmental assessment, based on the following research question: What is the nature of visual arts research data? Appendix A provides detail on the methodology; data was gathered from a literature review and 16 face-to-face interviews with visual arts researchers; four at each partner institution: Glasgow School of Art; Goldsmiths, University of London; University for the Creative Arts; and University of the Arts London

Stuff and data: challenges for research data management in the visual arts

A keynote presentation and workshop delivered at DARTS 4, the Academic and Research Libraries Group - South West conference, at Dartington Hall, 5-6 June 2014. During the workshop, the work of the Jisc-funded KAPTUR project and AHRC-funded VADS4R project will be explored. This has focused on seeking to enhance research data management practice within the visual arts. In particular the session will focus on the specific disciplinary challenges, how these have been addressed, and reflect upon the lessons learned and work still needed to be undertaken. The workshop will be interactive, enabling participants to investigate the nature of research data and the curatorial challenges it presents in the visual arts