JISC

Session 1:  Access to Images

Presentation by Peter Robinson regarding the CLIC project

Discussion points arising:

• Metadata is an issue – users of image repositories want it, but often users are also creators and depositors, who won’t create it (not part of workflow, not enough time, not enough money to create), therefore this is why a lot of images are on Flickr and why people within the academic community are using Flickr. 
• There is a tension between how academics search for resources (e.g. Google so they get fuzzy results in order to pin down their search) vs those resources provided by national services (e.g. EDINA) who need to keep their users within a ‘session’
• Some agreements that funding digital image repositories at a subject centre level may be the ideal solution, as people identify themselves with their subject first rather than on an institutional or national level (though repositories at this level are important too for the discovery of similar work).  However cross disciplinary research is becoming very important….
• Metadata creation whether manual or automatically generated – all metadata is crucial for the interpretation of the image.  One person’s metadata explaining their understanding of an image could be completely different to another persons
• Portals and metadata – problem is searching across metadata when very few fields are common.  Perhaps portals have been superseded by Web 2.0 social software technologies
• Trust is a very important word in the issue of depositing and sharing resources.  Also in trusting search engines (e.g. Google) and portals.
• IPR
• Personal tags to create metadata.  Reference made to project being undertaken at AberdeenUniversity, where personal tags are being underpinned by a thesaurus – this was felt to be a good approach
• Folksonomy metadata is one way of alleviating the costs of metadata creation

Session 2:  Use of Images

Presentation by Mike Pringle on the Digital Picture project

Discussion points arising:

• Discussion about how the AHDS might be taking forward the outcomes of the project with potential JISC funding, incorporating a wide range of image providers.
• Felt there should be a focus on people and their needs rather than on IT systems
• There are big pockets of users within the community and each want access to use sound resources, moving image resources and still image resources – people don’t want to search individually for each type of resource – they want a tool that will find all media  (then discussion about work being undertaken on the VSM portal)
• Exploration of how this idea was different from the Web (providing something that works for people).  This is about joining stuff up from a number of providers and sources and making it accessible through many points of entry.  The model for this work is extensible – starting with the visual arts as it is ‘easy to crack’ (moving in this direction already)
• Tensions around IPR: often the people who are creating stuff are within the academic community – they want to protect their IPR, whilst being academics.  It was felt that the proposed project would be a practical way of dealing with IPR which currently is a ‘brick wall’
• Is it the issue of IPR that is a hindrance or is it because people respect others ideas?  It’s not so much people don’t want to share but not take on other people’s ideas ref Tim Berners Lee.  This is very debilitating.

Session 3:  Copyright and IPR Issues

Presentation by Michael Ross on the CHERRI project and John Casey on the Trust DR project

Discussion points arising:

• Issue of Trust regarding IPR– there is leeway to build trust but we are working in a no trust environment.  This is compounded by the fact that senior managers are risk averse.  There is a need for a common framework to support senior managers and they are very nervous about having to take responsibility
• A Top down approach is needed to ensure change happens within the community.  There are good guidelines from HEFCE, but these are only guidelines and thus change is happening very slowly.  The issue needs pushing and senior managers need support and development.
• IPR also needs to be dealt with at an earlier part of peoples education and career development e.g. undergraduate modules and through teacher training.  HE and recruitment need to be involved also (e.g. contracts of employment and job descriptions), staff development activities for ongoing knowledge and awareness
• Trust can also be misplaced e.g. patients can give consent but not fully aware of how someone can sell/use resources.  There are also ethical issues to deal with.
• Going digital manifests issues that haven’t been addressed before e.g. underlying attitudes to resources
• There are issues relating to information management – this is often under-resourced and down-played within institutions because of e.g. Google, but it is felt that this is a time when it is required even more
• Librarian skills in 3^rd party rights clearance need attention – librarians are suffering a crisis in confidence
• Discussion of issues relating to IPR and PhD theses (where can have 30-40 images in one chapter) – need to clear all images before deposit of thesis into in a repository
• Discussion of issues relating to learning materials – issues of moving to a models for working (e.g. timely, working with colleagues for right cleared materials) – only happening very slowly and also because of political changes within institutions.
• Managers need to move away from “what can’t I do?” towards a “what can I do?”approach with IPR
• Most people are worried about commercial exploitation of their resources

Session 4:  Preserving Images

Presentation by Mike Pringle on the Digital Image Archiving project

Discussion points arising:

• There is a value in all objects (ref archaeology work) – should we really be making a decision to ‘throw’ things away by not preserving them?  How can we decide what is ‘valuable or not at this moment in time?
• Changing formats can lock people out of using resources.  Discussion about proprietary formats vs open source formats
• Various strategies that can be used to help support re-use of materials in old file formats e.g. emulation of the environment in which the file was created
• Digital preservation is a set of managed decisions (e.g. risk assessment) and activities over a lifetime – we can only do what we feel is best
• What is really important is the information value – what is important about a digital image is the information it conveys (both in pictorial form and in its metadata).  Therefore we also need to ensure the whole workflow of the creation of the digital image is fulfilled and that someone takes responsibility for describing the image.
• Felt that people needed ‘feasibility guidelines’ rather than a ‘big book’ of standards, which can be intimidating and confusing
• Metadata creation discussed in relation to the fact that digitisation projects are often funded on how many scans of images can be created in one day, rather than on how long it can take to create a metadata record for an image
• Scanning policy – should we scan everything and make it available, with the expectation that the community will describe it (folksonomy metadata)?
• Legacy materials need innovative solutions for preservation, with newly digitised images, we need to be a bit more prescriptive.
• The community has changed its thinking in relation to the changing and ever better technology being made available.  10 years ago, we were all thinking, “preserve everything”, now there is some recognition that we will select what we want to preserve and accept that some materials will have to be re-digitised to meet the needs of the education community
• Information value through significant metadata was raised in terms of how do you provide significant metadata that will support interdisciplinary use.

Session 5:  Panel Session

Key points for the JISC:

• IPR grinds things to a halt within an institution especially when images are involved – could JISC Legal provide support in this area?  Could there be an equivalent of the ERA (for broadcasting) or HERON (for text)?
• Role of e-Content Alliance in relation to discussions held over last two days
• Issues of funding – they put people in competition with each other, when we really need people to work together.  JISC is in a perfect position to turn this around and help build ‘relationships’ rather than a new system
• The education community needs to be leaders so that other communities (e.g. museums sector) will follow and be participating
• Perhaps we are worrying too much about infrastructure – it is the content and associated information that adds value.  We need political/cultural change
• A framework is required with established rules for participation.  There is a need to show how different models can fit in with the framework
• Digital images are the key to so much more: interesting stories with multiple topics, education, new education activities and pedagogies.
• JISC needs to provide responsive mode funding that enables the community to do what it wants.  JISC needs to trust the community and be less prescriptive.  Creating digital image content should be about what people want (demonstrate community, social, cultural needs) rather than focusing on the technical side of standards
• The digital deluge is now!  How do we find data in the terabytes of information already made available?  Perhaps we need tools also to index image files?

Rapporteur: Karla Youngs, TASI