Hidden Costs and Hidden Hours in Digitisation

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Hidden Costs and Hidden Hours: A Funder’s Perspective on Digitisation Cilip Executive Briefing 26th March 2009 Alastair Dunning, JISC Programme Manager a.dunning @AT@ jisc.ac.uk 0203 006 6065 http://digitisation.jiscinvolve.org/ 1

description

A perspective from the UK funding body JISC on digitization, looking both at common pitfalls in writing applications and also some of the hidden issues, both in terms of cost and time, in digitisation projects for cultural heritage.

Transcript of Hidden Costs and Hidden Hours in Digitisation

Page 1: Hidden Costs and Hidden Hours in Digitisation

Hidden Costs and Hidden Hours:A Funder’s Perspective on Digitisation

Cilip Executive Briefing26th March 2009

Alastair Dunning, JISC Programme Managera.dunning @AT@ jisc.ac.uk

0203 006 6065http://digitisation.jiscinvolve.org/

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What funding bodies look for Breaking down some project costs Examples drawn from JISC Digitisation

Programme Three strands, totalling >50 projects and

£22m worth of funding, from 2004 to present

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Speaking in capacity as working for JISC, HE focussed, but hopefully generic

Equally, this is not just relevant for digitisation

Peer-reviewers do the marking; often interpret criteria differently

You can be unlucky with a good bid; expect to fail before succeeding.

Winning teams show evidence of broader strategic thinking

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Evidence of Impact and Use Testimonies from potential users Embedding in national curriculum and

elsewhere Break down your audiences and target them Good dissemination and marketing Do not rely on historical significance – what

makes your project special? JISC Discmap and Impact Analysis Projects

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Linking up with Others Ensuring good resource discovery (e.g.

RLUK 19th-century pamphlets project ) Improve Your Online Presence workshop Economies of scale in terms of equipment,

software tools, delivery mechanisms Avoid creating isolated resources

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Organisation Strong leadership where necessary Advisory and Steering Boards obligatory

for larger projects Considered approach towards IPR

Recognition of risks and work to be done

Understanding of licensing beyond copyright clearance

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Workflows and Standards Not the same emphasis as 5 years ago, but

still important Use of existing standards, but also need for

metadata manipulation Integrating Web 2.0

Innovative interfaces becoming a must User-generated data to contextualise

your content?

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Practical Matters Do what you are asked for not what you

blindly want – use your strategy in imaginative ways.

Preparation before bids – partners, strategies, pilot studies – proactive not reactive

JISC has paid for servers and capture equipment, but do not exaggerate

Other sources of funding – show value for money

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JISC e-Content Call – Closes 1st June 2009 Strand A – Developing Institutional Skills

Economies of Scale for Digitisation and Delivery; new strategies for institutional digitisation

Strand B – Enhancing Digital Content Improving metadata, resource discovery, usability

etc. Only open to English and Welsh HEIs but

partnerships are possible Future for digitisation is a little unclear Often some overlap in other JISC calls

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Freeze Frame Polar Images

British Cartoon Archive

John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera

East London Theatre Archive

Mixture of photos, negatives, glass plates

Prints & sketches of newspaper cartoons in various media

Huge range or textual and printed material, playbills to cigarette cards

Mainly theatre posters

£523,490 – project cost

£946,770 £1.764m £628,987

c.20,000 images

c.15,000 images

c.65,000 images

c.15,000 images

Largely done in-house

Cost included significant metadata & hardware costs

Mixed public private investment

Many posters in fragile state

Approximate figures – end of projects reports will finalise numbers

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11But each project had different scope so differences are to be expected!

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Problems in digitisation often incur not extra costs, but take up more time, and involve more people within an institution

Unclear lines of communication or weak management slow down projects with partners

In the JISC Digitisation Programme, Transport, Licensing, Copyright Clearance, Metadata Creation, Metadata Manipulation, Quality Control all caused more problems than antcipated 12

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This is a subjective approximation of project costs and time spent on the East London Theatre Archive Project

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This is a subjective approximation of project costs and time spent on phase 2 of the Archival Sound Recordings Project

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If you have serious ambitions for digitisation, a broader strategy is required

Think about audiences and impact

Build your metadata and reuse it

Data capture will be the least of your problems, unless doing it for first time.

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