Digital curation skills in the performing arts: an investigation of practitioner awareness and knowledge of digital object management and preservation

This study examines the digital curation awareness and practice of a sample of practitioners from the UK performing arts community. Twelve performance arts practitioners from across the United Kingdom were interviewed to establish understanding of whether, why and how they create and manage digital objects in the course of their creative work. Detailed qualitative data from this series of one-to-one interviews about the actual and intended digital curation practices of these performance arts practitioners establish what they understand about sustainable management of digital objects, and also which digital curation activities they actually include in their working processes. This knowledge is supplemented with some preliminary exploration of the types of digital resources that are sought and used by performance arts practitioners, in order to understand whether there is a comparable appetite for the creation and for the reuse of digital objects in this field. Questions in the interview identify the sources used by practitioners when attempting to access digital objects created by others as part of research for their own creative work. This provides a ‘practitioner's-eye view’ of performance collections; that is to say, the resources used by practitioners as collections for research, irrespective of the formal designation or intended purpose of such resources. Here, this enquiry is set into the broader context of digital curation and preservation. The approach to the interviewing is described, findings are discussed and the presence of possible skills and knowledge gaps is presented. Concluding remarks indicate the implications of these indicative findings for the representation of performance arts practice for current and future generations, and suggest useful future areas of enquiry

Ahead of the CurV: digital curator vocational education

In this paper, we describe the work of the EC-funded DigCurV project. We examine the context of the project, the methods and findings of its extensive survey work, and the development of proposed frameworks for evaluating and delivering a digital curation curriculum

Big data: the potential role of research data management and research data registries

Universities generate and hold increasingly vast quantities of research data – both in the form of large, well-structured datasets but more often in the form of a long tail of small, distributed datasets which collectively amount to ‘Big Data’ and offer significant potential for reuse. However, unlike big data, these collections of small data are often less well curated and are usually very difficult to find thereby reducing their potential reuse value. The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) works to support UK universities to better manage and expose their research data so that its full value may be realised. With a focus on tapping into this long tail of small data, this presentation will cover two main DCC, services: DMPonline which helps researchers to identify potentially valuable research data and to plan for its longer-term retention and reuse; and the UK pilot research data registry and discovery service (RDRDS) which will help to ensure that research data produced in UK HEIs can be found, understood, and reused. Initially we will introduce participants to the role of data management planning to open up dialogue between researchers and library services to ensure potentially valuable research data are managed appropriately and made available for reuse where feasible. DMPs provide institutions with valuable insights into the scale of their data holdings, highlight any ethical and legal requirements that need to be met, and enable planning for dissemination and reuse. We will also introduce the DCC’s DMPonline, a tool to help researchers write DMPs, which can be customised by institutions and integrated with other systems to simplify and enhance the management and reuse of data. In the second part of the presentation we will focus on making selected research data more visible for reuse and explore the potential value of local and national research data registries. In particular we will highlight the Jisc-funded RDRDS pilot to establish a UK national service that aggregates metadata relating to data collections held in research institutions and subject data centres. The session will conclude by exploring some of the opportunities we may collaboratively explore in facilitating the management, aggregation and reuse of research data

Statistics for Equal Opportunities in Higher Education: Final Report to HEFCE, SHEFC, HEFCW

This report gives the findings and conclusions of a project looking at the availability and use of statistics on discrimination and equality of employment opportunity in the higher education sector, considering both academic and non-academic staff. This represents a small part of a wider programme funded by the three Higher Education Funding Councils exploring how best to monitor the higher education sector in order to avoid discrimination and facilitate the dissemination of good practice

Performances, preservation and policy implications: digital curation and preservation awareness and strategy in the performing arts

Digital assets in contemporary performing arts practice are vulnerable to damage and disappearance, eroding prospects of a coherent record of contemporary practice and its place in our wider digital cultural heritage. This paper summarises a study that seeks to understand and assess this threat so that appropriate solutions – if necessary – can be scoped and provided in a way accessible both to the practitioner and the research and academic/training communities. A series of case studies was developed examining the digital curation and preservation awareness and practice of a sample of UK-based performing arts professionals. This approach provides a ‘practitioner’s-eye view’ of the types of digital objects used by this community; current curation strategies and activities; and the factors that influence digital curation and preservation decisions. This study establishes that digital objects are highly prized by the professional performance community. Accordingly, expectations of the survival of these digital objects are high, but investigation found that levels of sustainable digital curation and preservation practice are low. These findings support the argument that competent digital curation and preservation practice is relevant to the sustainability of a career in the performing arts, as well as of benefit to the arts researcher or student and cultural heritage more widely. These findings reveal the need for an effective response in order to mitigate the loss of digital cultural heritage in this professional sector. Preservation of the digital cultural objects that are created, shared and sought by performing arts practitioners is subject to the economic realities of professional practice and also constrained by current levels of practitioner digital curation awareness and competence. These skills are not yet routinely taught in practitioner training institutions. There is an urgent need i) to promulgate policies based on a sound knowledge of digital curation and preservation practices in the professional performing arts community; and ii) for a coherent strategy to develop practitioner knowledge and skills, and to deliver such training in language accessible to the community of practice. This paper describes the problem, my research approach, and my findings and recommendations, and is intended to be of interest to all those engaged in policy and skills development in communities of practice beyond the academy, particularly in the creative arts and cultural heritage domains

Emerging good practice in managing research data and research information within UK Universities

Sound data intensive science depends upon effective research data and information management. Efficient and interoperable research information systems will be crucial for enabling and exploiting data intensive research however it is equally important that a research ecosystem is cultivated within research-intensive institutions that foster sustainable communication, cooperation and support of a diverse range of research-related staff. Researchers, librarians, administrators, ethics advisors, and IT professionals all have a vital contribution to make in ensuring that research data and related information is available, visible, understandable and usable over the mid to long term. This paper will provide a summary of several ongoing initiatives that the Jisc-funded Digital Curation Centre (DCC) are currently involved with in the UK and internationally to help staff within higher education institutions prepare to meet funding body mandates relating to research data management and sharing and to engage fully in the digital agenda

Show me the data: the pilot UK Research Data Registry

The UK Research Data (Metadata) Registry pilot project is implementing a prototype registry for the UK's research data assets, enabling the holdings of subject-based data centres and institutional data repositories alike to be searched from a single location. The purpose of the prototype is to prove the concept of the registry and uncover challenges that will need to be addressed if and when the registry is developed into a sustainable service. The prototype is being tested using metadata records harvested from nine UK data centres and the data repositories of nine UK universities

Effecting Change: Civil Servants and Refugee Policy in 1970s Canada

Historic transformations took place in Canada’s refugee programs in the 1970s. Through the eyes of Michael Molloy, then director of Refugee Policy in the Department of Manpower and Immigration, this article explores the political climate that led to innovations in refugee admissions and resettlement efforts as they evolved from subjective, ad hoc affairs in the immediate post-war period to integral aspects of Canada’s immigration program by the late 1970s. By considering the role of individual members of the Department of Immigration, including the visa officers stationed overseas who were responsible for determining admissions and immigration officials working in policy units in Ottawa, this article points to the important role that individuals played in delivering programs that ultimately shaped the direction of refugee admissions and resettlement in Canada and the country’s engagement with the international refugee regime.Au Canada, les programmes relatifs aux réfugiés ont fait l’objet de modifications historiques dans les années 70. À travers le regard de Michael Molloy, qui était alors Directeur de la politique relative aux réfugiés au Département de la Main d’œuvre et de l’Immigration, cet article détaille le climat politique qui a conduit aux innovations concernant l’admission des réfugiés et les efforts de réinstallation, alors que ce sujet passait du statut d’affaires ponctuelles et subjectives de l’après-guerre immédiat à celui de perspectives indissociables du programme d’immigration du Canada à la fin des années 70. En envisageant le rôle des membres du département de l’immigration, y compris celui des agents des visas établis à l’étranger et responsables sur le terrain de l’admission des immigrants et celui des agents de l’immigration travaillant à Ottawa dans diverses unités de la politique, cet article fait apparaître en premier lieu le rôle important joué par les personnes dans la délivrance des programmes en vertu de la Politique sur les minorités opprimées qui, ultimement, a façonné la direction de l’admission des réfugiés et de leur réinstallation au Canada. Il met par ailleurs en évidence l’engagement du pays envers le régime international des réfugiés

The DigCurV curriculum framework for digital curation in the cultural heritage sector

The Digital Curator Vocational Education (‘DigCurV’) project was funded by the European Commission’s Leonardo da Vinci lifelong learning programme . It aimed to establish a curriculum framework for vocational training in digital curation. DigCurV brought together a network of partners to address the availability of vocational training for digital curators in the library, archive, museum and cultural heritage sectors, with a particular focus on the training needed to develop new skills that are essential for the long-term management of digital collections. In 2013, the DigCurV collaborative network completed development of this Curriculum Framework for digital curation skills in the European cultural heritage sector. Drawing on a variety of established skills and competence models in the digital curation and cultural heritage sectors, DigCurV synthesised such expertise with input from those in the digital curation professions to develop a new Curriculum Framework. As a result, the Framework can help develop digital curation training offerings, provide a benchmark against which to map and compare existing offerings, and motivate training providers to continue to develop and refresh training. Our paper will describe the salient points of this work, including how the project team conducted the research necessary to develop the Framework, the structure of the Framework, the processes used to validate the Framework, and three ‘lenses’ onto the Framework. Our paper will also provide suggestions as to how the Framework might be used, including a description of potential audiences and purposes. As such, this paper draws on various DigCurV project deliverables. The contributions of members of the network to these deliverables is gratefully acknowledged

Statistics for Equal Opportunities in Higher Education: Final Report to HEFCE, SHEFC, HEFCW

This report gives the findings and conclusions of a project looking at the availability and use of statistics on discrimination and equality of employment opportunity in the higher education sector, considering both academic and non-academic staff. This represents a small part of a wider programme funded by the three Higher Education Funding Councils exploring how best to monitor the higher education sector in order to avoid discrimination and facilitate the dissemination of good practice