JISC WW1 Discovery Programme
The ‘JISC WW1 Discovery programme’ aims to build an aggregation layer to present prioritised WW1 digital content from a range of digital collections across the UK so that related material can be more easily discovered and exploited by educators and researchers in higher and further education.
This programme has two componant phases that slot together to produce a coherent, comprehensive, open and sustainable resource in line with the JISC WW1 Statement of Intent.
Phase 1
WW1 Discovery: Content Prioritisation @ Kings College London
2014 marks the centenary of the outbreak of World War One and the beginning of a succession of commemorations of landmark campaigns and battles alongside consideration of one of the biggest social upheavals the world has experienced in living memory. The ‘war to end all wars’ to this day remains the most widely covered in teaching in further and higher education and is a huge focus for research across disciplines but despite the growth of exciting multidisciplinary approaches to its study, little centralised information exists on what aspects of the war are being taught or the key research questions in development. Additionally, whilst a vast plethora of collections on World War One reside in digital and analogue forms in a range of museums, galleries, archives, libraries etc across the UK, much remains underexploited by education and research due to its sheer volume and its presentation collection ‘silos’.
Due to this breadth and depth of content available around WW1, it is necessary to prioritise the potential content that could or should be included in an initial aggregation of material and which will, ideally, act as a foundation for future work in this area. This prioritisation will be based on an in-depth knowledge on the WW1 collections available, i.e. the types of content (e.g. film, images documents etc) they cover as well as their availability vis a vis licensing and re-use terms, but will also, most crucially, meet and address an identified academic or educational need and/or priority. Once we understand these issues, we are much better placed to be able to not only provide a basis for the JISC WW1 Discovery aggregation, but also to provide essential information to those scoping WW1 projects throughout the public sector.
This is a potentially huge piece of work and expectations will be managed in terms of how much will be achieved by the completion date of 20 March 2012. However, to give the project team the best chance of success, it is important that as wide a range of views as possible are gathered. To this end, KCL will be conducting desk research and telephone interviews as necessary on what is actually taught in HE, compiling targeted surveys of resources available and their use and seeking input of academic and information professionals through focus groups, lists and invitations to blog/Twitter.
If you are able to input into any of this on-going research, please contact lynelle.howson@kcl.ac.uk (teaching survey) or daniel.whittingham@kcl.ac.uk (archives survey)
Phase 2
WW1 Discovery: Aggregation Exemplar @ MIMAs
This phase of the programme will aim to build an aggregation layer, which draws together all WW1 digital content selected in phase 1 of the programme. Core to the creation of this aggregation layer is the vision and approaches outlined by JISC’s ‘Discovery’ programme which aims to make resources more discoverable both by people and machines. In doing so, we can make our data work harder, integrating and combining it in new ways that can add value for researchers, teachers, and managers of information assets within universities, colleges, libraries, archives and museums.
Using the ‘Discovery’ vision and principles, data flows and management across and between universities and other sectors/service providers will be improved and made more efficient and effective. Essentially, it will help optimise the discoverability and reusability of this digital content generated by UK universities and beyond. The aggregation layer build will provide a ‘real-world’ exemplar of what can be achieved using the Discovery principles in content delivery and ensure a positive contribution towards the WW1 centenary programme being coordinated across the public-sector.
A range of interfaces will also be developed ‘on top’ of the aggregation layer to develop ways in which content can be presented to maximise opportunities for educational and research innovation in WW1 study and an in-depth evaluation study of the work and methodology undertaken.
Work will start on phase 2 in January 2012 and complete in July 2012
