Getting started with digital content

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Contents

OVERVIEW

This article explains the importance of digital content, particularly for learning and research, its different formats and uses and gives an overview of the main aspects of managing a successful digital content programme.


Introduction

The importance of digital content

Online content is any form of knowledge, information or data stored electronically. It can range from collections of monographs, articles, objects, images or sound to research data sets and public or commercial information. It can be online gaming, digital art works and the growing body of information and opinion contained in Blogs, social networking sites and the like. Online content may never have existed in any other form (born digital) or it may have been created as part of a digitisation programme, where physical objects are transferred into electronic formats.

Without digital content there would be no World Wide Web. The Internet could continue to support communication - the transportation of content from one place to another - but without digital content websites would be no more than empty vessels; e-Bay without things to sell, Wikipedia minus the 'pedia'! So, the storage and exploitation of digital content, whether for profit, for fun, for education or wider social value are the fundamental tasks to be addressed by any individual or organisation wishing to share their content with others. Whether for the online shopper, the student in formal education or people searching for information to deal with a life choice or a hobby, it is the quality and accessibility of the online content that will define the quality of their experience.

The other significant factor to be considered is the increasingly important role that the Web plays in the lives of more and more people. There is now an expectation that every organisation will have a Web presence even if only to provide a route for people to make contact. Of course, such minimum utility is the exception and today many of the issues associated with accessibility to content are derived from the competitive nature of search engine rankings: those who get in the top ten get discovered. In consequence the public sector institution must recognise that successful online services demand the supply of content in forms and scope to meet the needs of the audiences that the institution serves, delivering public value and must find ways to compete with every other organisation working to get on the first page of search engine hits.


Digital content for knowledge, learning and research

For public sector organisations moving services on to the Web may be to make transactions easier: for example, completing a tax return, renewing a TV licence, or to promote the organisation such as using a museum website as a marketing tool, or to increase accessibility to physical content-based services including education, health information, broadcasters, museums, libraries and archives.
It is in this latter category - institutions that collect and exploit content for their users where accessibility becomes most significant and where Digipedia offers the means to draw together in one place high-quality advice and experience to build greater collaboration and thus increase the chance that the use will find the content they need and any particular moment in time.

Public institutions that manage knowledge for audiences have already built up a body of knowledge and experience in the delivery of their services across the Web (see the Digipedia case studies article for a range of good examples). However, while there is such good practice around, the changing expectation of users - that things ought to be on the Web and that they should be easily found - has led to some concerns that the public sector needs to demonstrate a more 'collective' and organised approach to the digital content that it provides. That for the user, at the initial point of contact, the aggregation of content that is of interest may be more use that simply to discover a range of organisations that may have content of interest.

It is this issue of encouraging a common approach and the adoption of good practice that sits at the heart of the work of the Strategic Content Alliance, the organisations that saw the value in creating Digipedia as guide to managing digital content in public sector. Wherever possible, Digipedia re-uses content from existing authoritative sources from the UK and beyond, practising the collaborative approach it encourages of content managers.


Getting started 1: six principles for successful digital programmes

NISO IMLS Framwork

Managing a successful digital content programme means understanding the whole process from initial planning to service delivery and in thinking long-term, not just about making sure all the technical processes are in place and using appropriate standards, although this is of course, important. The NISO Framework of guidance for building good digital collections sums this up succinctly in its six principles for successful digital programmes:


Initiatives Principle 1: A good digital initiative has a substantial design and planning component.
Initiatives Principle 2: A good digital initiative has an appropriate level of staffing with necessary expertise to achieve its objectives.
Initiatives Principle 3: A good digital initiative follows best practices for project management.
Initiatives Principle 4: A good digital initiative has an evaluation component.
Initiatives Principle 5: A good digital initiative markets itself and broadly disseminates information about the initiative's process and outcomes.
Initiatives Principle 6: A good digital initiative considers the entire lifecycle of the digital collection and associated services.

Getting started 2: seven good practice tips for managing digital content

This section is taken from Make it Digital and is licenced under a Creative Commons attribution 3.0 New Zealand licence

The best digital technology cannot overcome poor decision-making and implementation. Content creators and owners should carefully consider and plan for all the stages of a digital project before spending the first dollar in bringing it to life.For those who are just getting started with digitising or creating new content using digital formats, we have put together seven good practice tips.


Make IT Digital NZ

Tip 1: Have a clear purpose for your content

Making content digital doesn’t automatically make it of value. Broad plans to digitise or make large volumes of digital content available without researching who will use the content and why, may result in an expensive under-used resource. The volume of content possible digitally is so large that being selective can greatly improve the value of what you are creating. For instance, one image of a hat described as belonging to Katherine Mansfield is likely to be of more value than several random hat images with no descriptions.

A vital first step is to select and match your content to an identified need. You should undertake some basic research to identify the purpose of your digitisation. Be clear about what outcome you expect – for example are you aiming to protect original items by digitising them? Is it more important to teach people how to create digital videos or permanently keep access to the videos that they make? Are you expecting an orderly and structured user experience or will you encourage any quantity of diverse content to be created for searching through?

Digipedia guides to help


Tip 2: Choose appropriate formats for creating content

Knowing your purpose and expected outcome for users are two basics in getting started with a digital project, and both should inform your choice of technology and formats for creating content.

Whether digitising content or creating new digital content, your hardware decisions should be based on fit for purpose. Flat-bed scanners will generally do a better job of copying photographic prints and text than a free-standing digital camera, while dedicated scanners for books and film will come up with a better result for those media. Audio recorders should if possible create easily editable lossless formats, while video cameras should allow an option of directly exporting the native format from the recording medium for archiving and later editing.

Using lossless or uncompressed formats for copying or creating source files will allow the greatest flexibility for making edits and access copies while keeping the digital master safely archived. Choosing openly published interoperable formats also provides the best chance of your content being usable across different software platforms and into the future.

Digipedia guides to help


Tip 3: Set aside resources to describe your content

It’s not uncommon for a digital content project to start out by digitising or creating new content only to find later that the hundreds of digital items made are hard to navigate or sort. Having a strategy for unique naming of files and for embedding basic descriptive information into digital objects is an essential part of making digital content usable.

Descriptive information, or metadata, has always been important in professional collection management. Before digital storage there was always an option for users to browse shelves or filing cabinets to find what they wanted. Today the huge volumes of digital content being created means browsing by simple date, alphabetical or numerical order quickly becomes impractical. Most of this content is also not managed by information professionals. To ensure your digital content can be stored, found and used over time, it needs to have good metadata attached or tagged to it that describes what the content is, where it came from, and who can use it. If you find you are generating digital content with filenames such as IMG_001.JPG, 1.WAV, or UNTITLED.AVI, rename them now!

Digipedia guides to help


Tip 4: Work out in advance how your content will be managed

Any digital content that amounts to more than a few dozen items needs to be managed as a collection. This means continuing to develop it over time by adding, removing and updating content as required, and being prepared to migrate the individual items between different hardware and software platforms. It also means planning for ongoing back-up and maintenance, along with using a repository, content management or database system that supports open standards. It will be easier to plan and make these decisions ahead of your content creation so that you have a realistic view of the resources and formats required for the volume of content being generated.

Part of management is also deciding who has authority to access and make changes to the collection and who has overall responsibility and ownership of the content within. Although someone with IT skills may be needed to administer the hardware and software, a different set of skills is needed to make judgements about changes to the content. This process can be assisted by the creation of a collection policy that documents what the collection is about, how changes are made, who can access the collection and who is responsible overall.

Digipedia guides to help


Tip 5: Structure your content for easy discovery

Once the content you’ve created has been described and properly stored in a repository, database or content management system, it is important that users can easily access the information contained within. Without physical cues like shelf numbers, file colours or box size, it can be very difficult for anyone not familiar with your content to quickly search through your collection and find what they need. Understanding how users are going to arrive at your content and discover what you have for them is a critical step towards ensuring a well-used resource.

If you have web-based content available to the public, your web-site or content system should be designed to expose your collections to search engines. The vast majority of public users will come to your content through a commercial search engine like Google or Yahoo, not through your front page URL. Optimising your web content so search engines can index it will ensure your content can be discovered more easily.

For users who come directly to your front page, or where you have authentication or a login that restricts access to subscribers, navigation aids and search tools should be designed to help expose content that a searcher may not know you hold. A blank search box or an A-Z structure is off-putting for users that don’t know exactly what they are looking for. Discovery features like tag clouds, multiple navigation choices, showcases and widgets can help your content be found more easily.

Digipedia guides to help


Tip 6: Inform potential users of what they can do with your content

A decade ago most digital content users were using computers less powerful than some of today’s mobile phones, and accessed content with a CD-ROM drive or dial-up internet connection. Today’s PCs have high-resolution monitors, powerful processors and are likely to be connected to the internet via broadband. As a result, the expectations users have of their experience and interaction with your content is much different – they want to download, interact, copy and re-use content for their own purposes and projects, and the web is often the first place they go.

With these expectations in mind, users need to be instantly informed about what they can and can’t do with your content rather than being given blanket legal statements, locked down formats or requirements to send off for written permission. Having clear rights statements and where possible licence statements that focus on permitted behaviour rather than prohibited behaviour will help protect the integrity of your content while encouraging users to return to you for their next experience.

Digipedia guides to help


Tip 7: Implement a backup and long term storage plan

Analogue print, audio and moving image technologies are centred on the production of physical copies of content that, when stored appropriately, only decay gradually over time. Damage is usually visible to the eye, and when discovered the content can often be restored or at least made sense of. Digital technologies, in contrast, rely solely on machine-readable media that can decay or fail rapidly without visible signs of damage. Such failure can happen in days, weeks or months, and may lead to the complete and irreversible loss of your content. That means back-up and long-term storage options have to be a core part of your digital project planning from day one.

A back-up requires you to have a minimum of two copies of your content – your currently accessed content and a separate, up to date copy. Back-ups should be planned daily or weekly depending on the volumes of content available or being created, and should ideally involve a further off-site back-up to protect against theft, fire or natural disaster.

Long-term storage requires a different strategy from back-up. It involves planning for archival copies of your content to be migrated between different storage media over time, and a contingency for transfer of content to another agency should your organisation or service face closure. This is where your choices of appropriate formats, descriptions, collections policy and rights statements really come into their own.

Digiedia guides to help


Getting Started 3: Digipedia guides

There is no one answer or correct approach to creating successful digital resources, each programme must take into account its own particular circumstances and make informed choices making use of the available expert advice and guidance to be found on Digipedia. The resources are divided into eight broad sections, each dealing with a specific aspect of managing digital content, providing links to other related articles in Digipedia and external authoritative sources.


Developing policies and strategies for digital content

This section takes you through the importance of taking a strategic view of any development that involves digital content, what to consider when putting together a strategy for your own institution (including broader policy frameworks, value for money, evaluation, planning and preservation) and links to examples of existing policies and strategies from around the world.


Reaching audiences effectively

Here you will find resources commissioned by the Strategic Content Alliance from Curtis and Cartwright Consulting forming the Audience Analysis Toolkit. There are guides which offer an in-depth study of how to define your target audience, planning audience research, the various methods which are available for collecting research data, then analysing that data to obtain a useful model of your likely audience and continuing to use audience research to make sure your service responds to their needs effectively. Case studies offer in-depth studies of the audience analysis activities undertaken by ten public sector institutions to inform the service they provide and Briefing Papers aimed at different domains in the public sector providing summaries on audience research. In short: how to make sure you provide the right content and services for the people who will be using it.


Digital content life cycle

Make IT Digital NZ Lifecycle

This describes the stages of managing all digital content projects and programmes, adopting a good practice approach for each to ensure continued success. Digipedia has Digipedia has adopted the seven-stage approach to the digital life cycle set out by Digital New Zealand's Make It Digital good practice guide:

  • Selecting: for analogue or new content, selecting what should be made digital
  • Creating: putting content in a form to make it usable
  • Describing: describing content so it can be organised
  • Managing: managing content to keep it usable and available
  • Discovering: organising content to make it findable
  • Using & Reusing: ensuring content can be used and re-purposed
  • Preserving: managing content to keep it usable and available long-term The main building blocks to ensure a good-practice approach


Digital content and the law

How to make sure you keep within the law when using other people's content and also protect your own content. Here you will find the Strategic Content Alliance IPR Toolkit, a comprehensive resource for use by professionals and policy makers working across the public sector, which has been evaluated and amended following stakeholder peer review. It includes decision support tools, navigation resources with exemplars and detailed case studies from organisations representing the public sector, illustrating specific models adopted to deal with rights issues. The Toolkit is accompanied by Web2Rights, a comprehensive guide to legal issues relating particularly to the use of Web 2.0 technologies in universities and colleges, funded by JISC.


Digitisation

This section deals with the nitty-gritty of the digitisation process and the standards supporting it. You will find advice on how to undertake a content audit to help you decide what to digitise, costing models for digitising different kinds of analogue materials, whether you should undertake the work youself or go to an outside agency, how to manage different formats (audio, images, documents and so on), developing an effective workflow and, underpinning the whole process, choosing the right standards for your particular needs.


Preservation

How to make sure that your content is accessible over time as technology changes. Digital objects need to be preserved if they are to keep up with prevailing technology and as the rate of built-in obsolescence of software and hardware devices increases. At the same time the body of digital objects within an organisation is increasing, so a clear archiving and disposal policy needs to be in place, which allows for repeated appraisal of digital objects, their format and continued value to an institution or to the wider community. This section looks at approaches to a digital preservation strategy, risk assessment and future-proofing for digital content.


Evaluation

The assessment of how well used your digital content is and how satisfied your users feel are essential steps in the digital content life cycle. Evaluation is an activity which informs development of a service and helps its managers to understand the value and impact the service is having on its users, answering the "What difference has it made?" question. Digipedia provides information on both quantitative and qualitative evaluation, impact analysis and measuring how your service is used, making sure that you know how your content is being used and why so that you can plan for the future.


Funding and sustainability

For so many initiatives, sustainability is the elephant in the room. This section of Digipedia presents a number of key priciples to help you plan for a sustainable service. Here you will find the Ithaka Sustainability and Revenue Models for Online Academic Resources toolkit commissioned by the Strategic Content Alliance which considers approaches to sustainability and presents a range of case studies demonstrating different models.


Related Digipedia articles

Audience analysis and modelling

Developing policies and strategies for digital content

Digital content life cycle

Digital content and the law

Digitisation

Evaluation

Preservation

Funding and sustainability


Further information

These are other expert sources of advice and guidance on managing digital content covering the whole of the process on which Digipedia has drawn:

NISO Framework of guidance for building good digital collections. 3rd ed. 2007

JISC Digital Media

Digital Preservation Coalition

UKOLN Good Practice Guide

Make it digital


Harvested links to other resources


Decoding the digital: a common language for preservation
A Digital Preservation Coalition and Preservation Advisory Centre joint conference exploring communication and promoting interaction between librarians, archivists, and digital preservation managers. [?]
Digital Copyright
A Collections Trust factsheet providing guidance to collections holding organisations on issues of digital copyright. [?]
Good Practice Guide for Developers of Cultural Heritage Web Services
A UKOLN resource focussing on the issues associated with income generation and sustainability for digitisation projects. [?]
Digitisation
A Collections Trust factsheet. Defines digitisation and the digital life cycle; describes how digitisation works and how to choose equipment types; advice on whether to digitise in-house or outsource [?]
Computer Graphics
A Collections Trust factsheet. Discusses the basics of computer graphics: pixels, dimensions, colour, magnification, different types of images and the associated hardware and software. [?]
Practical Steps for Compliance with the Digital Economy Act
What are the implications of the Digital Economy Act for your organisation? For anyone providing public Internet access, the DEAct is an important piece of legislation. Although primarily aimed at HE/ [?]
Copyright for Culture
This network exists to bring together people with an interest in Copyright in museums, archives and libraries to share knowledge and expertise. It will also provide a focus for sharing information abo [?]
Report to the EC on Digitisation and Digital Preservation in the UK
Every two years, each EU Member State has to report to the European Commission describing their progress against a set of Recommendations for Digitisation, Digital Preservation and online accesibility [?]
SPECTRUM Partners
A network for SPECTRUM Partners. SPECTRUM Partners are the only collection and digital asset management software vendors who have a licence for the commerical use of SPECTRUM with their products. [?]
Digital Access
A network for people interested in extending access to and engagement with culture through technology, including Digital content creation, digital preservation and related subjects. [?]
Encouraging Digital Access to Culture
A groundbreaking report from Jon Drori for DCMS, this brings together the thinkers, movers and shakers in Digital Culture, exploring how Government can respond to the lessons learned in thelast 10 yea [?]
Talk Web
Delivering digital applications to the collections world, like we have done here for this website. [?]
Digital Preservation Guidelines for Museums
This is a great entry-level guide to the main issues to consider when developing Digital content so that it is more sustainable and capable of being preserved in the medium to long-term. The Guideline [?]
Family photography going digital
'Family Photography Going Digital', a paper by Gillian Rose. Looks at family snaps, thinks about the importance of family photos and considers how they construct notions of home and family. Notes tha [?]
Managing Digital Media Collections
This one day course will offer a model of digital collection management, based upon open source solutions. Attendees will gain hands-on experience of planning, building, managing and delivering a digi [?]
Digital Media Restoration
Analogue media deteriorates at an alarming rate and few digitisation projects can hope to retrieve great signals from aged collections. In order to archive maximum usefulness some basic digital remast [?]
Copyright Creative Commons
A Collections Trust factsheet. Defines Creative Commons as an online initiative offering digital content producers the opportunity to select from a range of licences that permit access to their conten [?]
Managing the Digitisation of Library, Archive and Museum Materials
A National Preservation Office leaflet on the management of the digitisation process, of digitisation projects, and of digital image archives [?]
Culture Grid opens up UK collections online
Over one million objects from collections from museums, galleries, libraries and archives from across the UK are now accessible together online for the first time, thanks to the Culture Grid, a new [?]
Read all about it!
Find out more about the Collections Trust and how they can help you manage you collections by ordering your free copy of OpenCulture, the Collections Trust newspaper. The newspaper showcase [?]
Collect: The Collections Management Exhibition
Collect: The Collections Management Exhibition Date: 28 June 2010 Opening times: 10.00am - 4.00pm Venue: Kingsw [?]
Rachelb
Rachel Bhandari<br/>Museums Galleries Scotland<br/>Development Manager (Digital Access)<br/>rachelb@museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk<br/> [?]
JISC Digital Media
JISC Digital Media<br/>Organisation<br/>Bristol<br/> [?]
New partnership to support Scottish museums
Museums Galleries Scotland and The Collections Trust are delighted to announce a new partnership which celebrates a shared vision for Scotland&apos;s museums and galleries. The partnership builds on man [?]
Collections Trust partnership with Scottish university museums
The Collections Trust and Scottish university museums have announced a new partnership to make collections available online using the Culture Grid.&nbsp; [?]
chilesl
Lawrence Chiles<br/>National Maritime Museum<br/>Digital project manager<br/>lchiles@nmm.ac.uk<br/> [?]
ptaylor10
Paul Taylor<br/>Digital Estate Corporation<br/>CEO<br/>paul.taylor@arcalife.com<br/> [?] 


[[Role::newcomer]] [[Role::strategy manager]] [[Role::policy maker]] [[Role::project manager]] 
[[Role::content manager]] [[Role::acquisitions manager]] [[Role::technical support]] [[Goal::developing]] 
[[Goal::national strategy]] [[Goal::managing]] [[Goal::project]] [[Level::basic]] [[Level::medium]] [[Level::deep]]
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