Content in Context - The Strategic Content Alliance(An umbrella for the UK’s Digital

Content)

Surf Education Day, Utrecht12th November 2008

Alastair DunningDigitisation Programme Manager, JISC

a.dunning @AT@ jisc.ac.uk

Content Deluge• A flood of digital content from UK public sector• Digitised, licensed, mashed-up, analysed, re-purposed,

disseminated …• Focus here on cultural or social content, equally true for

governmental, scientific or pedagogical content• British Library Online Treasures includes

British Library Sound Archive, 4,200hrs of recorded oral history, wildlife, music etc.

• NOF-digitise Programme – 154 museums, libraries and archives - £50m programme

• National Educational Network – over 800 resources authorised for usage in schools

• National Health Service Choices – Vast information resource relating to health and patient choice in UK

Content Deluge

1. Is the content really being used?

2. Is the content being discovered?

3. Has the content been licensed?

4. Is the content being maintained?

5. Is the content contextualised?

• Different agencies for different audiences– Schools, universities, hospitals, museums

• Lack of joined-up policies

• Lack of shared knowledge and infrastructure

• Knock on in terms of time, cost from hardware and software to user expectation

Why problems? – Too Many Logos!

How can we solve these problems?• Strategic Content Alliance

– Developing Policies, with case studies and best practice

• JISC Mass Digitisation Programme – 22 projects, £22m, 2004-9– E.g. 18th-Century Parliamentary Papers

– Welsh and Irish Journal Digitisation

• JISC Enriching Digital Resources – 25 projects, £1.8m, 2008-9– E.g. Digitising meteorological data

– Digitising medical slide libraries

1. Finding Users / Audience Analysis

• Sharing best practice in analysing user base• Break down the educational audience

– But teachers, undergraduates, discipline-focussed scholars or postgraduates, learners of all ages and requirements

• Break down the general public– Genealogists, local historians, etc.

• Why do users want content? What is their precise need?• Case Study of IPlayer? what else• Toolkit for Measuring Impact

– Quantitative and Qualitative methodologies for judging the impact of digital resources

• Evaluating Special Collections vs User Needs– Survey of heritage collections and academic demand

2. Silos, Metadata

• User cannot exploit relationships between existing content

• Providers overspend on creating the same infrastructure

• Exploiting web2.0 features– Virtual Manuscript Room– East London Theatre Archive– First World War Poetry Archive– Encyclopedia of Stained Glass

2. Silos, Metadata

• BBC Memoryshare– Allowed BBC users to upload personal

memories and search by time and place

• CenturyShare– Sharing content between partners mentioned

earlier (e.g. British Library, JISC, Becta)– Hosted by BBC, using MemoryShare

metaphors, e.g. time, place and theme– Ready in Spring 2009

3. Copyright – Policy & Clearance

• Time and cost of clearing copyright• Economic inefficiencies through mixed licensing

deals & different restrictions on end users

Therefore Strategic Content Alliance is• Researching copyright issues

– Gathering politicians’ comments on open access

• Lobbying European Union on orphan works• Devising common templates for SCA partners to

employ in copyright concerns

4. Sustainability

• Digital content often funded on project basis and unable to sustain itself– Staff leave, content then becomes out-of-date,

interface appears dated, functionality suffers, website may even disappear

• Report: Sustainability and Revenue Models for Online Academic Resources – Looks at different models (subscription, adverts,

institutional support, added value) for thinking of content as a service rather than a project

– Further case studies being produced / best practice from partners involved

– Influence on discussion on Libraries of the Future

5. Embedding into practice

• Content can make little sense with context• Who can explain these images?

England vs Australia, 1956, from NewsFilm Online resource

5. Embedding into practice• Enhancing Teaching & Learning with Digitised Resou

rces • Material to allow user to exploit the NewsFilmOnline

resource – Technical tutorials and video case studies on 3,000 hours of

20th-century news clips – Matrix to explore different pedagogical methods that digital

resources – Going beyond using a resource for illustration, instead using

it for analogy, metaphor– Associating method with learning space, e.g.

• A dissonant topic in a film clip to start a lecture

• Detailed study of a film clip in a small seminar room

An umbrella for the content deluge

Policies and practices to ensure that

1. Content is being used2. Content is being discovered3. Content is licensed4. Content is maintained5. Content is contextualised

Acknowledgments

• Deluge -http://www.flickr.com/photos/practicalowl/2904588009/

• Silos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bottleleaf/2218990208/

• Audience -http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterjlambert/97671748/

• Support -http://www.flickr.com/photos/allen_nolan/2698559297/

• Umbrella - http://www.flickr.com/photos/29051967@N03/2914100785/