A Tale of Two Countries Digital Curation Education in Malta and New Zealand Milena Dobreva Gillian Oliver Library Information and Archive Sciences Dept School of Information Management University of Malta Victoria University of Wellington Msida, Malta Wellington, New Zealand milena.dobreva@um.edu.mt gillian.oliver@vuw.ac.nz Abstract—This paper looks into the current tertiary and vocational offering in the domain of digital curation in two small II. CURRENT PROVISION AND NEEDS IN DIGITAL CURATION countries, Malta and New Zealand. It illustrates how the specifics EDUCATION IN MALTA AND NEW ZEALAND of local memory institutions and digital media sector influence the The selection of the countries presented in this paper existing course, and identifies areas which can be improved. followed the natural interest and previous cooperation of the Particular emphasis in both countries needs to be placed on the vocational education and in-service training; in addition in Malta authors who work in the countries discussed. However, the there is a need to develop a framework for the validation of the choice of the cases is not only a matter of serendipity. Both non-formal and informal learning in the domain of digital curation. countries are small and this signals the key problem, how countries with limited human resources respond to needs and Keywords—Higher education, in-service training, validation of new developments in digital curation. Do their memory non-formal and informal learning. institutions and other stakeholders taking care of digital data have the awareness in digital curation? Do they have the potential to I. INTRODUCTION develop solutions which match their needs? How is education Small countries face particular challenges in attempting to responding to local needs—both in the cases of tertiary deliver digital curation training and education. Resources and education, and vocational training? Which are the areas where expertise are likely to be very limited, with perhaps just one or most urgent action is needed and how much of it can be locally two individuals with the specialist skills required to teach in this developed, and what would be better suited to happen in some area. Nevertheless, the need for learning opportunities are just as form of international cooperation or eInfrastructure? great as elsewhere in the world, and there is likely to be considerable interest and enthusiasm for training and education, A. Malta both from new entrants to information management professions The population of Malta is about 400.000 people. It has a and established practitioners. If there are no local programmes well-developed system of memory institutions. The Archives Act prospective students may have no option but to try to gain their of 2005 [1] provided the necessary legislative framework for the education overseas but this will only be feasible for very few. At Archives and records management in the country; however in the same time, when specialist digital curation positions become particular the requirements to have qualified records managers in available employers may prefer to recruit from overseas, thus all governmental bodies are still not applied in real life practice. further denying development opportunities for the local workforce. From the training/education provider’s perspectives This characterizes a situation where even the most basic the numbers of potential students, and potential job opportunities records management is not implemented in places and this will simply may not seem to justify the provision of specialist have a further negative impact on the holdings of the National programmes. This paper reports on experiences in two small Archives when they receive records which are not prepared up to countries, Malta and New Zealand, to show approaches that have high professional standards. been successfully developed despite considerable resourcing Most specialists with a master’s degree in archives and constraints. records management received their training abroad, with UK courses being most popular. The only University in Malta addresses the need in specialists in archives and records management on the lower higher education levels. 1) Higher educaton: curation in infancy implemented by non-governmental organisations and based on crowdsourcing [4], is the Maltese musical heritage. There are The tertiary education in the country addresses the need to several initiatives which aim to gather and preserve historical increase professional skills in the domains of archives and musical records (M3P project as described by Toni Sant [4], and records management in general. The University of Malta has the work of A. Alamango on ‘The Lost Voices’ project [5]. offered courses on archives and records management (a diploma in archives and records management and a Bachelor in Library, Although these initiatives emphasize the need for Archives and Information Studies since 2007 [2] which had been preservation, it is understood merely as sustaining our access to discontinued in the last years and is now being restored. The historical records through digital surrogates. The sustainability of decision to stop the course reflected a restructuring in the area of the digital objects still needs to be considered properly. The Library Information and Archive sciences—when the former interest to this domain is illustrated by the fact that one of the division established in 1992-3 became a department in 2011. first three Master by research students in Library Information and Since 2012 the departments also started offering for the first time Archive studies is working on user engagement in the case of in Malta a Master by research in Library Information and musical historical heritage and will touch upon the preservation Archive Studies; this is a useful programme for motivated issues. professionals but not particularly suited for the area of digital Furthermore, the Department of Library Information and curation where practical skills are largely still to be introduced in Archive Sciences also joined as an associated partner Malta. EUScreenXL, the continuation of the EUscreen project [6] The Diploma in Archives and Records Management is funded by the European Commission as an associate member—a currently undergoing a revision and will be re-launched in 2013- step which hopefully will increase the local expertise in the 14. Among the discussion on the introduction of new subjects presentation and preservation of video and audio heritage. such as Records management, Audio-visual archiving, Personal Unfortunately, Malta is not part of eInfrastructure projects archiving, one area which is considered for inclusion is digital which could improve the local knowledge and competences, such curation. Having a module on digital curation within the archival as DARIAH or DCH-RP. One possible way to improve the and records management context would definitely need to current situation is to be more proactive towards such address the specific needs of these institutions. The department opportunities to be informed and to apply newly developed tools has one staff member with expertise in digital preservation and and services. curation – and contributed in 2012 to a highly acclaimed summer school on Access to Digital Archives (July 2012, Summer Another area which needs urgent attention is the one of data University at Central European University, Budapest) which is curation. While it emerges as a domain of training in its own the basis for a specialised edited collection on issues around right [7], it is still not addressed in either higher education or in- access to digital archives [3]. service training in Malta. Currently curation needs in Malta are dominated by the work done within memory institutions, but this The local situation in Malta requires the promotion of definitely will need to be addressed in the near future. awareness and basic knowledge in this domain. Currently most efforts of memory institutions are still concentrated on digitisation and digital asset management systems with 3) In greatest need: in-service training and validation of non- preservation and curation not in focus. formal and informal learning in the area of curation Given this context, the digital curation course aims to establish the understanding of digital curation as an essential While the higher education in Malta addressed the needs in component from the digital objects’ lifecycle, and to offer basic proper introduction of curation content, aligned to the level of knowledge on preservation strategies, major standards, current needs in the country, the offers for in-service training and preservation functional entities and illustration of popular professional courses in the country are completely missing at the curation tools and services. moment. Examples from the EC-funded projects will be used widely The Maltese Library and Information Association (MaLIA) during this new course, in order to provide also the necessary EC offers talks and also short courses, but this domain is currently context, which is essential in the case of Malta. completely untouched. This illustrates that other domains of library and archive and record management practice are given 2) Specific curation needs priority and considered to be in need of urgent attention, part of them concern digital skills. However a systematic effort needs to One heritage area in Malta which attracts substantial attention not only in the memory institutions, but also through projects be made to also improve local awareness and skills related to voice over Internet protocol, in conjunction with a supporting curation. asynchronous learning management system (Blackboard). This is also linked to an area which is only emerging in These two factors meant that the course was delivered in Malta, validation of non-formal and informal learning. It makes double lecture sessions on six concurrent Monday evenings in the sense when developing programmes for in-service training to link pre-Christmas period leading up to the Southern Hemisphere them to subsequent validation of staff. This will help to summer break – a difficult time to study and concentrate. So a consolidate efforts of different bodies—memory institutions and key requirement was to make sure the content was engaging and those which are authorized to validate skills and expertise. stimulating. B. New Zealand The course was structured as follows: New Zealand’s relatively small population of about four • Session One: Issues and challenges; digital preservation million, coupled with its geographic isolation in the South Pacific strategies are significant factors impacting on the provision of education. • Session Two: International research projects; OAIS Numbers of potential students for specialist courses are low, and • Session Three: Ingest and Storage in today’s economic climate courses that do not promise at least a • Session Four: Administration, Data management and return on investment are unlikely to come to fruition. This Access environment however encourages the development of innovative • Session Five: Preservation planning and Evaluation solutions to problems, and where there is a need as is the case of • Session Six: Alternatives to OAIS digital curation skills, there is the will to find ways to make things happen. For sessions one to five, one or more practitioners volunteered their time as guest speakers, talking about their New Zealand has just one provider of information experiences with the issues and challenges associated with the management education at postgraduate level, including archives topic for that evening. Using the OAIS terminology provided the and records management, the School of Information common language necessary to ensure that the practitioner guest Management (SIM) at Victoria University of Wellington [8]. A speakers could easily focus on the areas required. At the same course on managing digital collections which focused on time, more practitioners were involved in the Blackboard digitization activities had been developed some years earlier. environment. As such limited time was available, with no The existing masters qualification provided the opportunity for immediate possibilities apparent to offer further courses, it was the development of a single 15 point unit of study on digital important to make sure the problems associated with specialist curation, which was offered for the first time in the third areas were at least signalled. Consequently there were online trimester of 2011. There was a keen interest from students in this discussion forums for questions and answers about the curation new course, and importantly there was also a lot of enthusiasm of digital audio-visual information and data, providing the from the New Zealand digital preservation community in opportunity for students to ‘talk’ directly to specialist digital Wellington. This community support was instrumental in the archivists working in those areas. very successful initial offering. The course was very successful indeed. Student feedback New Zealand ‘s capital city of Wellington is the centre for was extremely enthusiastic, with many positive and appreciative much of the ongoing digital curation activity in the country, not comments made about the involvement of practitioners. This only taking place at the national library, archives and museum community involvement had significant benefits. Firstly, but also at other government departments such as the national students were exposed to a depth and breadth of specialist digital statistics agency. Practitioners in these organisations were very curation knowledge and experience that could not have been keen to be involved in the new course, and their contributions provided by a single instructor. Secondly, students and potential ensured that the course content was very relevant to workplace employers had the opportunity for relationship and network concerns. building across New Zealand. Thirdly, although offered in the Delivery of the course was challenging as it had been decided context of a formal masters qualification, the course content was at a much earlier stage to offer it as a condensed six-week course. very firmly grounded in vocational realities. A further complicating factor was that there were insufficient III. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS enrolments for the daytime face-to-face class, but over 30 students wanting to study at a distance, online. Online courses at The presentation of the situation in both countries is SIM generally have an evening synchronous component, using summarized in the table below. Criterion Malta New Zealand naturally to be considered; in the case of New Zealand the focus Current offering of Yes, one module Yes, one course in should be outwards, with the aim of attracting international higher education on Digital the Masters of students from the Asia Pacific region. courses Curation within Information the DipARM Studies, plus one Timeframe Malta New Zealand course; one on- pre-existing course Short-term (1-2 • Join relevant • Rationalise going Master by on managing years) EC content coverage research project. digital collections. eInfrastructrues. in ‘digital’ Curation module is • Stabilise courses, and under curation course develop development. in higher certificate Type of provision Reactive, curation Proactive, aiming education. programme. in higher education is currently to capitalize on • Introduce • Market courses featuring introduced as a local strategies and components of certificate to curation module in the expertise. curation practitioners as DipARM course. knowledge post-experience Current offering of No A 100 hour work within in- programme. in-service training placement is an service and • Develop work option, but not vocational placement specifically training opportunities for developed for programmes. students. digital curation. Medium-term (3-5 • Introduce • Continue to Clear criteria for No Partly - New years) validation of actively involve validation of non- Zealand’s library non-formal and local digital formal and association has an informal curation informal learning accreditation training. community in programme for • Address needs provision of members. in training on learning & Areas where Digitised musical Audio-Visual data curation. identification of interest exists but heritage. archiving. training needs. there is lack of Long-term (10 • Achieve a solid • Develop a suite expertise years) level of curation of courses which Areas completely Data curation. Big data archiving. in institutions address a range unaddressed which currently of specialist TABLE I. COMPARISON BETWEEN DIGITAL CURATION EDUCATION work on requirements, PROVISION AND NEEDS IN MALTA AND NEW ZEALAND digitisation of and make One issue which needs to be addressed seriously in Malta is and access to available the need to make a step over the current ‘reactive’ type of cultural internationally. offering to a more proactive scenario which is not only heritage. addressing local realities, but actively introduces existing best practices and technological solutions. Domain-wise, in Malta TABLE II. ROADMAP FOR THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT there is a clear need to do more about the education on data It would be very helpful to compare to what extent the curation, which currently is terra incognita in both higher and in- emerging priorities in digital curation training in Malta and New service education. Zealand correspond to those in other countries, and how small On the basis of these two examples, we also looked into the teams can join forces to offer high quality training. For both possible priorities for future development and summarized it in a countries a useful strategy will be to undertake a gap analysis of Roadmap (see Table II). We should note that Malta and New current training provision with the DigCurV Evaluation Zealand could tap into different external collaborations in order Framework [9]. This will be particularly useful in terms of to develop further digital curation education. In the case of Malta assessing the extent to which the training needs of different the European Commission and projects implemented within it are potential audiences are being fulfilled. REFERENCES [6] EUScreen project. http://www.euscreen.eu/ [7] N. Weber, C. Palmer, T. Chao, ‘Current Trends and Future Directions [1] National Archives Act, Malta, 2005. Available: in Data Curation Research and Education’, Journal of Web http://www.justiceservices.gov.mt/DownloadDocument.aspx?app=lo Librarianship, 6:4, 305-320, 2012. m&itemid=8943&l=1 [8] Chawner, G. 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