SCA Blog

How can we lever greater collaboration and cooperation in the development of e-content standards, tools and architectures?

Moderator Stuart Dempster began the session by acknowledging that the language of digitisation can be a barrier to collaboration and cooperation. Depending where you come from the vernacular changes eg users, stakeholders, audience? There is no lingua franca or digital Esperanto. How can we lever more effective communications?
Read on for the rest of the discussion

Joyce Ray (JR): part of the impetus for the conference on tools is the awareness that we don?t want to be stepping all over each other and that there are all different kinds of tools being developed all the time - need to keep others informed so funders know if something is already being done or those engaged in similar issues can get together.

Regarding language, you say e-content - we say cyber infrastructure? On the vocabulary spectrum is the question of mass digitisation - what does it mean? Is it the same as large-scale digitisation? It’s been proposed that mass is collaborative ad would serve more than one institution

Andrew Tyerman (AT): It’s a critical point and it’s not just technical vocabulary ? cross-sector language is also different - we’re all about the same thing but jargon gets in the way - we need to stop being precious about it - it doesn’t matter if we call it one thing or the other as long as we have a common understanding

Andrew Green (AG): let’s get rid of the word ‘digitisation’!

SD: it represents that project mentality - cottage industry, piecemeal? we need to think of it as publishing. But when we talk about a common language, there are different terminologies within the archives sector and within the public sector and again it is very different when you talk to business

Chris Batt (CB): we can’t even find a term to describe a collection of assets in cyberspace which might be useful to people - so might want to see how we describe the relationships between words so that we have a common map - if you map out what’s involved then there aren’t that many steps involved - is there a common architecture you could describe in steps - we need to find alternative mechanisms

BR: are the funders happy with the ways they have to measure the sustainability of the collections they provide? Not a lot of metrics out there to judge proposals for funding for digitisation based on the likelihood that that digitised content will be maintained for some time

SD: apart from SEA and membership organisations, are you aware of any frameworks in place to transfer knowledge and share information?

CB: Knowledge Transfer Networks have been created by the department for trade and industry - about 15 of them exist and have a flourishing website with material about them on it - it’s a framework which encourages constituents to come together and work to a common agenda

JR: there’s work going on with object exchange - ORE (object reuse and exchange)

Ralph Goebel (RG): could the SEA be expanded with other players rather than try to replicate it in other countries?

SD: it’s a framework based on best practice and principles ? synthesis of existing information - there’s a lot of work addressing common problems globally that’s funded as a result of national or local mandates - if it’s being done elsewhere it would be good to know about it and share the knowledge

CB: while there’s certainly a value in exchanging experience, we don’t all share a common language or even a common world view - can’t overestimate the production of a global sense of what mass digitisation is going to be - can’t kid ourselves that we or anyone else is going to break these silos - the only way we can intervene to start to make a difference is to have a sense of what it’s for - a sense of the change it brings about in peoples’ live to do things in a different way - communication is vital but we have to see it in the context of what’s around us

SD: when we talk about mass digitisation we need to consider the need for scale and a better return on investment and find out what best practice is in a time of great turbulence - we are investing significant funds and need to have a sense of stability about the future

PK: a literary agent pitching to a publisher has the duty of due diligence and to say why the book is different to the others out in the market. Perhaps projects pitching for funds also need to demonstrate their state of uniqueness

SD: what would be on your wishlist in answer to this question of levering greater cooperation in the development of e-content standards, tools and architectures?

BR: uniformity in measuring of what the long term value and sustainability is and unanimity among the funders in measuring that

JR: Preservation repositories as cannot expect every institution with content to meet the preservation standards

CB: value is important but there are a number of levels of that - many institutions want to do something themselves and have ownership so there has to be sufficient added value from collaboration for them to step over that threshold

AT: have to acknowledge what the cultural barriers are to collaboration

RG: a sharing expertise by sharing people through job secondments