AccessIT+ Overview and workplan Mary Rowlatt PMB meeting, Tuzla, June 2012

AccessIT+ - What is it? a continuation of the successful AccessIT project – developed two online training courses aimed at the staff of cultural heritage institutions (libraries, museums galleries) – in Greece, Serbia and Turkey. – AccessITplus extends the project to include Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska Bosnia and Croatia.

Aims of the Culture Programme include: “support for the trans-national circulation of cultural and artistic works and products” – AccessIT and AccessIT+ help create the conditions to do this using digital means – By creating 2 online training courses to give people working in libraries, museums and galleries the necessary skills Funded by the EC Education, Audiovisual and Cultural Executive Agency – _culture_en.php _culture_en.php

What do the courses cover? Digital Repositories for Small Memory Institutions covers: – how to digitise cultural heritage objects, how to prepare them for on-line presentation and how to describe them with metadata – theoretical background plus practical instructions which will enable small institutions to create high quality digital content and make it available to services like EuropeanaEuropeana

What do the courses cover? (2) Cooperation with Europeana – is aimed at those who want to provide their content to EuropeanaEuropeana – covers: the vision behind the Europeana service and explains its technical infrastructure – also provides a detailed explanation of the procedures which need to be followed in order to make digital cultural heritage resources available through Europeana

What will the project do? Runs from October 2011 – September 2013 Project partners will update the existing courses and translate them into Albanian, Bosnian and Croatian. The existing Greek, Serbian and Turkish courses will also be updated and retranslated. There will be a publicity campaign in each country After which the courses will be made available to online learners. Those successfully completing the courses will get certificates

What else? In addition pilot digital libraries will be established in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska Bosnia and Croatia and their content will be made available through Europeana The nucleus of a centre of competence will be established in each country

Who are the partners? MDR Partners, UK (co-ordinators) Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Centre, Poland (technical partners) Veria Central Public Library, Greece Belgrade City Library, Serbia Public Library Marin Barleti, Shkodra, Albania Javna i Univerzitetska Biblioteka, Derviš Sušić, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzogovena Narodna i univerzitetska biblioteka Republic of Srpske, Bosnia Rijeka Public Library, Croatia

Activities in more detail 1.Kick off meeting 2.Focus groups 3.Analysis of feedback 4.Detailed planning 5.Train core group of staff 6.Enhance existing resources and platform 7.User testing and modifications

Activities in more detail (2) 8. Translations 9. Publish and launch courses 10. Training undertaken 11. Plan and build pilot digital libraries 12. Evaluation and dissemination 13. Project management

Activity 1 Kick off meeting Took place in Richmond, London Purpose to ensure that: – a common vision – a clear overall view of objectives – an understanding of general and individual needs and constraints was established and that partners discussed and understood the implementation plan, budget and Agency regulations

2. Focus Groups Partners held one or more focus groups in each country designed to: – establish the extent of any existing digitisation initiatives and identify any existing digital content – assess the existing levels of digital skills amongst cultural heritage institution staff – Identify any special factors/challenges pertaining to this area in each of the three countries. This established a baseline for the project and help the partners have a clearer picture of the situation and needs within each country

3. Analysis of feedback Partners then carried out an analysis of the feedback received from students who have used the courses in Serbia, Greece and Turkey This fed into the detailed planning and timetabling for the project

4. Detailed planning Took place at the PMB meeting in Veria in March Partners revised the workplan

5. Train core staff 16 people trained in Veria, Greece in March 2012 Slides from the training: m=&dirids=1&tab=1&lp=1&QI= m=&dirids=1&tab=1&lp=1&QI Feedback: om=publication om=publication Summary report: om=publication om=publication

6. Enhance existing resources and platform PSNC, working with the other partners, will then enhance the existing resources according to the detailed plans and develop the new functionalities as previously listed in the proposal, including the versioning control. March – June 2012 (to be reported on)

7. User Testing and modifications These will then be tested in a user testing phase (Jul – Aug 2012) will also include corrections to the grammar and language used in the modules (to be planned) New material and modules will be prepared in English before being reviewed by one or more professional translators or native English speakers to improve the language before the courses are made available to implementation partners for translation into their own language(s).

8. Translations (to be planned) Partners in the implementation countries will be responsible for getting the courses translated (by end Dec 2012) through a combination of their own efforts, community-based translation and sub-contracting of experts Our Turkish partner also wants to implement the changes and make new translations Partners will also be responsible for ensuring the quality of the translations are good and that they are delivered on a timely basis The project will make available a special translation platform (based on wiki) for this purpose (is this required?)

9. Publish and launch courses (to be planned) Translated resources will be made available via the AccessITplus website but they will be hosted locally in the 3 implementation countries (Jan – March 2013) The courses will be formally launched and publicised by high level launch events in each country in Jan – Mar 2013 national and regional policy makers, managers of cultural institutions and senior technical practitioners from the cultural sector will be invited staff from cultural heritage institutions will be encouraged to register and complete the courses The experts trained at the training workshop will act as an ongoing resource, online reference point (centre of competence) and support for students of the courses as well as colleagues in the cultural sector generally

10. Training undertaken April – June 2013 trainees will be work their way through the online training courses (to be planned) Will take approximately 40 learning hours to complete over a period of up to 6 months. On completion participants should be able to identify and create digitised content and its associated metadata sufficient to comply with the standards required to contribute content to Europeana and other such services Certificate(s) will be awarded to successful trainees (which organisations?) Turkey will be running courses again – will Greece and Serbia?

11. Pilot digital libraries – plan and build April – June 2013 partners in Croatia, BiH and Albania, will create pilot digital libraries of local cultural content. (Check timing). Anything required for content from Greece, Serbia and Turkey?? This may involve: – some digitisation; the identification and installation of suitable OAI- PMH repository system(s) – the creation and uploading of the metadata for the digital content held or created by participants to that system – preparation of that metadata for aggregation and ingestion into other systems The partner in each country will ensure that the aggregation of content metadata remains sustainable post-project, perhaps by seeking collaboration with any other major national initiatives in the field

Digital libraries (2) The content will also be made available for testing and inclusion in the main Europeana service A separate local user interface to the content will be created where necessary, for example: where there is suitable cultural portal to which it could be contributed in the country All of this work will be done with the support of the Polish co-organiser which is a leader in Europe in this field, supported by the Greek and Serbian partners

12 Evaluation and dissemination Evaluation (to be planned) Dissemination is a separate item on the agenda (also to be discussed and planned)

13. Project management Effective co-ordination and administration, including the design and delivery of evaluation and dissemination work will be the responsibility of the UK co-organiser

Output targets 4 -8 competence centre staff trained in each country ( Croatia, BiH and Albania) and competency centres established in each Upwards of 100 staff in cultural heritage institutions in each country completing the online training courses. 75,000 objects digitised and available in pilot digital libraries in each country as well as in Europeana.