Digital Curator Vocational Education Europe: Overview of the DigCurV Project Kate Fernie Ann Gow and Laura Molloy MDR Partners (Consulting) Ltd HATII, University of Glasgow London, UK Glasgow, UK Kate.fernie@mdrpartners.com a.gow@hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk Abstract—This paper provides an overview of the EC-funded consortium (Germany) and the Digital Curation Centre (UK) DigCurV project, its context, methods, main findings, and the amongst other organisations from Austria, Belgium, the Czech project’s initial framework for a digital curation curriculum and Republic, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Curate! game. the Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, the UK, Canada, the USA and a number of European Commission funded Keywords – DigCurV; digital curation; vocational training and projects [4]. education; curriculum development; Europe Membership of the network is open to organisations and I. INTRODUCTION individuals. Over the last two years, as the project has The Digital Curator Vocational Education Project progressed membership has grown to include 44 organisations (DigCurV) [1] is funded by the European Commission’s and 168 individuals. Membership is worldwide with members Leonardo da Vinci programme [2]. The project began in based in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Israel, New January 2011 and runs until the end of June 2013. The main Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay, USA and twenty-one aim of the project has been to establish an initial curriculum European countries. In addition to the registered members, the framework from which vocational education and training in DigCurV network includes individuals who have registered to digital curation can be developed. receive our newsletter or who are following the project on Twitter. DigCurV brings together a network of partners [3] with a strong track record of international work in the field of digital The membership of the DigCurV network demonstrates preservation and digital curation to address the availability of that there is a large community of interest in education and education and training for staff working with digital collections training in digital curation. As a project we are grateful to the in the library, archive, museum and cultural heritage sectors. members of this network for their willingness to contribute to The project has a particular focus on the training needed to the project’s activities by taking part in surveys, focus groups, develop the new skills and competences that are essential for workshops and events. the long-term management of digital content. III. MAIN ACTIVITIES II. A STAKEHOLDER NETWORK The main project activities have included: The DigCurV project consortium brings together partners • Identifying and analyzing existing training from across Europe with two from Canada and the USA. The opportunities and the methodologies in use; European partners include HATII (Scotland, UK), the Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale (Italy), Georg-August- • Completing a survey and analysis of the need for Universität Göttingen (Germany), Trinity College Dublin vocational education and training amongst the staff of (Ireland), Vliniaus Universiteto Biblioteka (Lithuania) and cultural institutions; MDR Partners (England, UK). The Leonardo da Vinci programme allows for organisations from countries outside • Identifying the key roles, skills and competences of Europe to join project consortia which enabled the Faculty of digital curation; Information at the University of Toronto (Canada) and the • Establishing an initial framework for a digital curation Institute of Museum and Library Studies (USA) to be affiliated curriculum, working with the stakeholder network to with the project. evaluate and inform the framework as it has been From the beginning DigCurV has aimed to build a network developed via focus group meetings, workshops and of stakeholder organisations with a strong interest in training other activities; and education in the field of digital curation. The founding • Disseminating and promoting the project’s activities members of the DigCurV network included the Digital and its results, with a specific aim of promoting the Preservation Coalition (UK), the nestor qualification exploitation of the projects outputs by educators, than a dozen European institutions were registered as including institutions and staff across Europe and internationally. digital curation training as part of their curriculums [11]. IV. BACKGROUND V. PROJECT RESULTS Europe’s digital sector has seen strong growth in recent DigCurV set out to build on the results of previous years in all sectors. Since 2005, the European Commission has initiatives by surveying and analyzing the current situation. been actively encouraged this growth, particularly in the digital infrastructure for the economy and ICT skills for jobs, initially A. Analysing existing training opportunities through its i2010 strategy and currently through the 2020 At the beginning of April 2011, DigCurV launched a initiative and the Digital Agenda for Europe [5]. There has survey of existing training opportunities with the aim of: been investment in digitizing and in making cultural content • Identifying institutions, projects and individuals available online justified by the importance of the cultural offering training in digital curation mainly in Europe heritage sector in the European economy. but some responses were also obtained from North Research carried out in 2009 by the Numeric project [6], America; estimated that there were more than 77,000 cultural institutions in Europe (national libraries, university libraries, public • Analysing and mapping the training opportunities on libraries, special libraries, museums, national archives and offer to identify topics, skills, learning objectives, audio visual archives) with more than 82,000 staff. Many training methodologies and course formats, and involved in digitization of analogue materials or in collecting methods of assessment; born-digital materials. • Establishing a registry of training opportunities [12] The pace of development and change in information based on the findings of the survey and capable of technology has been very rapid which presents particular accepting details of forthcoming courses from network challenges to institutions responsible for the management and members; and long-term preservation of digital collections. For cultural • Developing an Evaluation Framework [13] intended to heritage institutions the availability of staff with the skills and help inform the DigCurV curriculum framework. competences needed to care for the digital objects in their collections is an increasingly pressing issue. Traditionally the B. Analysing training needs staff in libraries, museums, archives and galleries have In July and August 2011, DigCurV launched a survey of qualified in the care of physical objects through well training needs in the cultural sector [14]. The survey collected established professional and vocational courses. But as digital information about: content becomes increasingly prevalent in the collections held by cultural institutions new skills and competences are • Institutional contexts including for example whether required. the institution was currently (or planning to) carry out digital preservation of its collections, had plans for Surveys and informal research has been carried out in recruiting new staff or for training existing staff several countries, including the UK, Germany and the USA, members; which have found that both the recruitment of staff with the experience and qualifications needed for digital curation, and • The skills and competences being called for including providing training for existing staff members are challenges both general skills and those specific to digital faced by institutions. In 2004, work by the Digital Preservation curation; Coalition for the JISC had already established the need for • Training preferences for example for the means of digital preservation skills and training in multiple sectors in the delivery (online, in person), the length of course, the UK [7]. Research by DigitalPreservationEurope underlined the type of assessment; need for professionals to regularly refresh and update their skills as techiques in digital curation practice evolves [8]. A • The training needs being expressed for specific skills, growing demand for the skills of digital archivists was competences, roles, access to training etc. recognized in the New York Times in 2009 [9]. In 2010, Gartner Research identified the new role of “digital archivist” In addition to this survey, DigCurV collected job as one which IT departments required to remain effective – this advertisements throughout 2011. This enabled it to obtain a research estimated that 15% of all businesses would employ snap-shot of the state of recruitment and the level of skills, digital archivists by 2012 [10]. competences, qualifications and experience being called for by employers. Yet, in spite of this background, when the DigCurV project began in 2011 there were only a small number of institutions C. Developing an initial Curriculum Framework offering digital curation as a part of professional courses in Throughout 2012-13 DigCurV has been building on the library and information management or archives management results of the surveys completed in 2011 and on experience courses. In June 2011, the JISC organized an International within the consortium and from related initiatives to develop an Curation Education Forum (the ICE forum) at which fewer initial Curriculum Framework [15]. The Framework indicates the core digital curation skills and competences and pathways ACKNOWLEDGMENT of progression through these. There are three main ‘lenses’ to Thanks go to the entire DigCurV project team and to all the reflect the roles of ‘practitioner’, ‘manager’ and ‘executive’ members of the network who have participated in our research which indicate the skills and competences required in these and evaluation activities. roles. DigCurV is funded by the European Commission’s During the summer and autumn of 2012, the DigCurV team Education, Audiovisual and Culture Agency (EACEA) and its ran a series of workshops and presented initial versions of Leonardo da Vinci Programme. Curriculum Framework at a number of events to invite feedback [16]. This series culminated in a workshop held in REFERENCES Florence in December 2012 [17]. The feedback from these [1] DigCurV project website: http://digcur-education.org/ workshops was invaluable in informing the development of the [2] European Commission Leonardo da Vinci programme website: Curriculum Framework. http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning- programme/ldv_en.htm The Curriculum Framework was launched at the project’s [3] DigCurV project consortium: http://www.digcur- final conference in Florence in May 2013. The framework has education.org/eng/About/Founding-Partners three main intended uses: [4] DigCurV network: http://www.digcur-education.org/eng/About [5] European Commission, 2013, “Digital Agenda for Europe” • To build or develop training courses website: http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/ [6] Numeric, 2010, “Developing a statistical framework for measuring • To compare existing courses the progress made in the digitisation of cultural materials and content”, Download available from: • To plan professional development http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/telearn-digicult/publications_en.html [7] Digital Preservation Coalition: Training Needs Analysis, JISC, D. Curate! The Digital Curator Game 2004 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2004/trainingneedsanaly DigCurV first developed the Curate! game for a workshop sisreport.aspx which was held at the DISH conference in Rotterdam in 2011. [8] Harvey, R, 2007, “Professional Development in Digital It was designed to provide a way for curators to explore their Preservation: a life-time requirement’, DigitalPreservationEurope changing roles in creating, managing and curating digital briefing paper: content as they advance around the board. http://www.digitalpreservationeurope.eu/publications/professional _development.pdf Following the positive feedback received from players of [9] De Aenlle, C., 2009, “Digital Archivists in Demand”, New York Times, February 2009, online: the game at the first trial session, the Curate! game has been http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/jobs/08starts.html?_r=0 made available to registered members of the DigCurV network [10] Gartner, 2010, “Gartner Identifies Four Information Management as a download package [18]. Curate! is currently being Roles IT departments need to Remain Effective’, press release: translated into several languages by members of the network. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1282513 It has been played at conferences, workshops and staff [11] JISC, 2011, “International Curation Education (ICE) forum”, web page: development sessions worldwide. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/preservation/iceforu m VI. CONCLUSION [12] DigCurV, 2011, “Registry of Training Opportunities”, online: This paper provides a brief overview of the activities and http://www.digcur-education.org/eng/Training-opportunities [13] DigCurV, 2011,”Training opportunities Survey and Evaluation results of DigCurV, separate papers in these proceedings Framework”, report available on this page: http://www.digcur- describe the projects main activities and results in more detail. education.org/eng/Resources [14] DigCurV, 2012, ‘Report and analysis of the Training needs DigCurV has been a highly participatory project. We set survey’, online: http://www.digcur- out aiming to involve both educationalists and culture sector education.org/eng/Resources/Report-and-analysis-on-the-training- professionals in our activities to inform the development of the needs-survey Curriculum Framework. The international network that has [15] DigCurV, 2013, ‘A Framework Curriculum for Digital Curations’, online resource: http://www.digcurv.gla.ac.uk/ and see also: grown up around DigCurV is open and we invite new members http://www.digcur-education.org/eng/Resources to join and to exploit the resources that project. [16] Molloy, L., and Gow, A., 2012 “Ahead of the CurV: Digital Curator Vocational Education”, 9th International Conference on Ultimately, the project’s aim has been to stimulate an Preservation of Digital Objects (iPres2012), 1-5 Oct 2012, increase in the availability of vocational education and training Toronto, Canada. opportunities for digital curators. We look forward to hearing https://ipres.ischool.utoronto.ca/sites/ipres.ischool.utoronto.ca/files news of the Curriculum Framework and the Curate! game /iPres%202012%20Conference%20Proceedings%20Final.pdf [17] DigCurV 2012, “Framing the Digital Curation Curriculum: A being put to use and about new training courses being DigCurV workshop”, http://www.digcur- developed in future. education.org/eng/Events/Framing-the-Digital-Curation- Curriculum-a-DigCurV-Workshop [18] DigCurV 2012, “Curate: The Digital Curator Game”, http://www.digcur-education.org/eng/Resources/CURATE-Game