Educating the Curator: Digital Curation Education in North America Helen R. Tibbo Alumni Distinguished Professor School of Information and Library Science University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Digital Curation Institute University of Toronto June 17, 2010 Toronto, CA 1

Thank you! To Wendy Duff for organizing this symposium and to the U or T Faculty of Information for its support. The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for their generous support of numerous Digital Curation Education initiatives in the US. All the hard work from UNC-CH SILS’s digital curation master’s and doctoral students. To all of you for attending this illuminating event and for your questions and feedback. 2

Today’s Presentation 1.Quick overview of the major digital curation initiatives in the US to date. 2.Mention of new funded projects announced by IMLS June 15, Pedagogical issues. 4.What we are doing at UNC – Chapel Hill. 5.Conclusions and Next Steps. 3

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DigCCurr I, II (2006, 2008) ESOPI-21 (2009) In partnership with National Archives and Records Administration CDCG (2009) In partnership with JISC, IMLS, & DCC University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

New MLS Concentration in Data Curation (2006) Digital Humanities Curation (2008) University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

University of Arizona Online graduate certificate program partnership with Arizona State Library and Archives (2006)

Other 2008 IMLS Awards UCLA – Archival educators consortium; doctoral programs for archives faculty University of Maryland – LIS internships in digital humanities centers University of Michigan – Digital archives program, internships in data repositories Pratt Institute - MSLIS/museum library certificate program

June 15,

Data Curation Education in Research Centers (DCERC) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Champaign, IL The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Graduate School of Library and Information Science, the University of Tennessee School of Information Sciences, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have partnered to establish Data Curation Education in Research Centers (DCERC). DCERC will develop a model, including a field experience in a data intensive scientific environment, for educating LIS master’s and doctoral students in data curation. 11

Preparing Information Professionals as Digital Managers Pratt Institute - New York, NY Project CHART (Cultural Heritage, Access, Research and Technology) is a three-year partnership among the Pratt Institute, the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Museum, and Brooklyn Historical Society designed to prepare 18 master’s students for leadership roles as digital managers and curators in libraries, museums, and archives. 12

Understanding Curation through the Use of Data Curation Profiles Purdue University - West Lafayette, IN Purdue University will create a series of workshops to expand the expertise of academic librarians about data curation issues. The needs of researchers and data producers are changing radically because of the disruptive effects of technology on research and its dissemination. This continuing education program will teach an estimated 370 librarians to be more effective data curators. 13

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What to Teach? Curriculum just being developed and following a blend of archival, information, business, and ethical principles along with cutting edge technical and process developments. Core content unclear; range of content is unclear. What is core vs. extended/specialized content? Uncertainty at all educational levels. 17

How to Teach? Face-to-face vs. remote. Lecture/discussion vs. hands-on, what’s the right mixture? What is the role of field experiences/internships? How do we sustain internships when grant money runs out? 18

Where to Teach? In graduate programs of information and library science? In other graduate programs – business, computer science? In undergraduate programs - IS, business, computer science? In the workplace? In K-12 schools? In the public library? 19

Audience Level At what audience should digital curation education be aimed? What are the implications for pre-requisite knowledge? What can we expect various audiences to know in advance? What can we teach based on what an audience knows? How do we best deal with mixed-level audiences? 20

Audience Focus How do teaching methods and content change based on the focus of the audience? ▫Do we provide different content/methods for scientists who need to manage data vs. humanists vs. the general public? ▫How do we best teach data curation and information management to content specialists (individual curators) vs. professional curators? How do we best segment the marketplace? 21

Programmatic Duration How long? How do pedagogical goals relate to length of instruction? What can we teach in 2 hours? 2 days? 2 weeks? 2 months? 2 years? How do you get a core of information management and curation to specialized audiences who have a limited attention span for learning about digital curation? 22

Programmatic Sustainability Who is going to pay for all this? What is the business model for continuing education? Who is going to take this on? How is the academic going to be rewarded for working in this arena beyond formal graduate and undergraduate education? How can we reach such a large audience (everyone needs to know about digital curation!)? Can I-Schools provide the digital curation teaching capacity that the government, military, corporate, scientific, academic, and public sectors will require? 23

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Preserving Access to Our Digital Future: Building an International Digital Curation Curriculum. IMLS Grant # RE Collaboration of School of Information & Library Science (SILS), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) & U.S. National Archives & Records Administration (NARA) Ran July 1, 2006 – December 31, /23/ DigCCurr Project say: dij-seeker

DigCCurr I Components Curriculum: To prepare students for digital curation with wide variety of organizations, contexts & types of resources: ▫ Graduate-level (master’s) curricular framework ▫ Course modules ▫ Course development ▫ Experiential components ▫ International guest speakers Two International Symposia: ▫DigCCurr2007: April 18-20, 2007 in Chapel Hill ▫DigCCurr2009: Practice, Promise and Prospects: April 1-3, 2009 in Chapel Hill - Carolina Digital Curation Fellowship program 5/23/

DigCCurr 2009 Proceedings Available as free download or in print for nominal fee: DigCCurr2009 ISBN DigCCurr2009 5/23/

28 Carolina Digital Curation Fellows

DigCCurr Family Tree 5/23/ DigCCurr I DigCCurr II IDEA CDCG DigCCurr I ESOPI 21

DigCCurr II “Extending an International Digital Curation Curriculum to Doctoral Students and Practitioners.” This project is funded through IMLS Laura Bush funds. A collaboration of the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and Univ. of Toronto through Seamus Ross. Project to run August 1, 2008 – July 31, /23/

DigCCurr II Key Activities  PhD Fellowships - 6  Digital Curation Exchange (DCE)   Summer Institutes  Week-long summer workshop for practitioners.  Follow-up session held approximately six months later.   Second held May 16-21, 2010 (33 participants from US, Canada, & Europe)  Public Symposia with Advisory Board  First to be held January 8, 2010  Engaging Communities for the Curation of Digital Products of Scholarly Endeavors  Ph.D. Seminar Series, /23/

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IDEA IDEA (International Digital Curation Education and Action) WG is a collaboration of SILS, HATII at the University of Glasgow, and the UK Digital Curation Center. IDEA is an international network of Digital Curation See D-Lib report (March/April 2009) for more info: ▫ Visit the DCE and join the IDEA discussion today! ▫ 5/23/

Closing the Digital Curation Gap (CDCG)  Years: 2009 ‐ 2011  Partners: IMLS, JISC, DCC  Goals:  Establish and support a network of digital curation practitioners, researchers, and educators through face ‐ to ‐ face meetings, web ‐ based communication, and various other information and communication technology (ICT) tools;  Establish a baseline of digital curation practice/knowledge, especially in small to medium ‐ sized cultural heritage institutions in the US and UK, through surveys, interviews and case studies. 5/23/

ESOPI 21 Years: 2009 ‐ 2012 Partners: UNC School of Government, National Archives, NC State Archives, UNC Goals: ▫Dual Degree Program ▫Fund 8 master’s students for 2 years leading to both a Masters of Science in Library Science (MSLS)/Masters of Public Administration (MPA) or a Masters of Science in Information Science (MSIS)/MPA. 5/23/

ESOPI 21 Goals, Continued Integrate ▫Policy development; ▫Issues of legal compliance; ▫extensive knowledge of government structures and information … ▫With archival principles, digital curation fundamentals, and electronic records management workflows and information technologies. SILS and the SOG are uniquely positioned for this educational challenge as these are the only MSIS/MSLS/MPA dual degree programs in the United States. 5/23/

SILS Digital Curation Programs Master’s of Science in Library or Information Science. ▫Concentration in Archives and Records Management. ▫Certificate in Digital Curation (Fall 2010). ▫10+ Ph.D. students in digital curation presently. DigCCurr Professional Institute. 37

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Where Are We? Everything above is exploratory and experimental – even the formal looking concentrations and certificates. There is only an emerging canon for the field of digital curation. Research and development is rapid but not easily translated into workflows of existing professionals. We are working this out. 39

Educational Needs Digital curation educators need to work together, across national boundaries and across levels, scope, and instructional purpose. We need to share materials and discuss approaches and emerging good practice. We need to ramp-up the educational workforce. We need to ramp-up educational efforts. 40

Next Steps Analogous to needs in digital curation as a whole, we need to: ▫Move from hand-crafted approaches to wide- spread and easily replicable solutions. ▫Produce more educators who can train the trainer. 41

5/23/ THANK YOU Questions? Resources… Feedback…

ASIST 2008, Columbus, OH43 DigCCurr Professional Institute: Curation Practices for the Digital Object Lifecycle May 15-20, 2011 & January 4-5, 2012 Chapel Hill, NC, USA 5/23/

DigCCurr Matrix of Digital Curation Knowledge and Competencies ( Dimensions 44

1. Mandates, Values & Principles First & most fundamental of DigCCurr Matrix dimensions Core reasons why the digital curation functions & skills should be carried out Should serve as the basis for criteria to evaluate whether digital curation activities have been carried out responsibly & appropriately Often made explicit through professional codes of ethics; industry & professional standards; laws & policies; design principles 45

2. Functions & Skills (More on this Later) 46

3. Professional, Disciplinary or Institutional/Organizational Context Professional Context – e.g. archivist, librarian Disciplinary Context – e.g. history, physics Institutional/Organizational Context – e.g. state government, academic, corporate 47

4. Type of Resource Level of Aggregation Level of Abstraction Medium Format Genre 48

5. Prerequisite Knowledge Instrumentally necessary in order to get other things done – e.g. may not need to build an XML parser, but probably need to know what XML & parsing are ▫Terminology ▫Characteristics of Technologies 49

6. Transition Point in Life of Digital Object 50

Back to those Digital Curation Functions “Know how” rather than “know that” Essential (but quite challenging) for educators to address 24 high-level functions & 4 meta-functions, most of which are then composed of dozens of sub- functions 51

High-Level Functions Administration Advocacy & Outreach Analysis & Characterization of Digital Objects/Packages Analysis & Evaluation of Producer Information Environment Archival Storage Common Services Collaboration, Coordination, Contracting with External Actors Data Management Description, Organization & Intellectual Control Destruction & Removal Identifying, Locating & Harvesting Ingest Management Preservation Planning & Implementation Production Purchasing & Managing Licenses Reference & User Support Selection, Appraisal & Disposition Systems engineering & development Transfer Transformation of Digital Objects/Packages Use, Reuse & Adding Value to Accessed Information Validation & Quality Control of Digital Objects/Packages 52

Meta-Level Functions Analysis & Documentation of Curation Functions Education & Sharing of Expertise or Guidance on Curation Functions Evaluation & Audit of Curation Functions Research & Development to Support Curation Functions 53