Students of all levels look for recommendations from their teachers to help them discover new resources, making teachers and lecturers a key path to sharing content from your digital collection.
To support the use of your digital collection in learning and teaching you might wish to develop guidance for teachers on how to use it in a learning context. This might involve developing self-contained packages based on your digital collection that meet clear teaching needs.
For important insights into how and why digital resources are used in teaching see our 2011 report on open educational resources (pdf) and the 2015 report on The Impact of OER on teaching and learning Practice (pdf).
Strategic outcomes
Making your digital collection available for learning and teaching can contribute to institutional strategies to:
Enrich learning and teaching
Universities are universally focused on opportunities to enhance student experience and success though enriching learning and teaching provision. Providers at all levels are looking for digital technologies to increase flexibility of mode, to enable personalisation and collaboration and to transform access to and contextualisation of resources.
Digitised content can make a strong contribution to these objectives by
- Enriching course materials and open education resources
- Providing a window on the world of advanced study and the mechanics of scholarship
- Offering teachers new opportunities to animate their subject areas
Enhance reputation
Reputation for research, learning, teaching and more broadly as an institution is developed on a number of fronts ranging from impact measures to astute marketing and publicity. Most would agree that high profile collections can play a part in that mix, demonstrating scholarly tradition, worthy investment and learning opportunity, especially in the humanities.
Digitised content can make a strong contribution to these objectives by
- Making the institution collections richly visible to the widest audience online
- Providing a vehicle for widely resonant press releases and associated social media
- Generating exposure through use in A-level teaching
Improve efficiency and effectiveness
The strategic outcomes of digitisation endorsed by the library survey can alternatively be described in terms of economy, efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery. This is particularly evident in the cases of learning and teaching and of research, where digitisation brings opportunities for greater effectiveness (personalization, collaboration, etc) as well as saving time and money.
The cases for efficiency and effectiveness can be assessed by comparing current practice (for example in curation, learning and research). However, it is important to beware of overstating economic benefits as the costs of digitisation are highly variable and may be set against zero cost (though less effective) alternatives.
Contribute to widening participation activities
Universities are strategically committed to widening participation across social and economic groupings in higher education for all levels (undergraduate degrees, postgraduate studies, continuing and professional education) and regardless of mode (ranging from full time to distance education and MOOCs).
Digitised content can make a strong contribution to these objectives by
- Showcasing attractive and original learning and research content to prospective students
- Enabling re-use, thus adding value to educational resources, not only for university use but also for schools and colleges
- Social media amplification that brings original digitised content to the attention of key interest groups, such as A level teachers or local interest groups
Discovery behaviours
These can be either through course reading lists or in the form of recommendations made in class or in a one-to-one discussion. When searching for resources to recommend, teachers tend to rely on their own specialist knowledge of the field, but may use library catalogues or online databases to check they have not missed anything relevant.
Case studies
Board of Longitude
Huw Jones, Cambridge University Digital Library.
Huw illustrates the huge impact that engaging with academic researchers can have on the discovery and use of digital materials.
Modelling, reconstructions, virtual worlds - connecting collections, researchers and the public
Louise Hampson, the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture, University of York.
Louise discusses the use of modelling, reconstructions and virtual worlds to bring collections and original academic research together.
In the loop
Linda Newington, University of Southampton.
As an example of social media in action, Linda discusses the success of temporarily using Twitter to promote the Knitting Reference Library @intheloop3 activities.
Case study: Social media and the balanced value impact model
Focusing resource discovery activities and social media strategies at the Museum of Design and Architecture, Middlesex University.
Case study: Using Flickr to promote special collections
Uploading photographs of 19th and early 20th century China from the Sir Robert Hart Collection to Flickr by Queen's University, Belfast.
Case study: Using Google Search console to track impact and use of collections
Implementing search engine optimisation (SEO) to understand users and use of special collections and the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield.
Case study: Using resource discovery techniques to create a user-friendly web presence
Adopting best practices in resource discovery and website design to re-launch the Museum of Rural English Life at the University of Reading.
Case study: Box of Broadcasts
Promoting internal use of the Box of Broadcasts (BoB) at the University of West London to improve student engagement with the library.
Case study: Promoting use of The Education Times Collection
Maximising visibility and the impact of online digital collections at University College London.
Case study: Promoting the institutional repository
Strategies to promote take-up in deposit and discovery of materials in the institutional repository at the University of West London.
Related resources
- Hawksey, M., Barker, P., and Campbell, L.M., (2013). New Approaches to Describing and Discovering Open Educational Resources. In Proceedings of OER13: Creating a Virtuous Circle. Nottingham, England.
- Sustainability of digital collections: a practical guide
- Jisc guide to open educational resources (OERs)
- Getting started with accessibility and inclusion
License your content correctly to enable suitable reuse
Enabling the reuse of resources, or the data describing resources, can enhance discoverability. It makes digital materials, or descriptions of those materials, available in a wider range of services and locations.
This can be simply about making descriptive data widely available so that other services can provide facilities to search and find items in a collection. It could include applying a licence to enable use of specific versions of resources (thumbnails, low-resolution images, extracts from texts), or licensing a resource for use in other environments.
Licensing a resource doesn’t mean you have to give up all rights. While you’ll enable more types of reuse if your license is permissive, it may sometimes be necessary to put conditions on the use of your content.
Licensing a whole collection and the items within it are not the same thing - a license for one doesn’t necessarily indicate a license for the other, and you need to consider this when applying them.
Some services (eg Wikipedia or Europeana) may require specific license before you can use them to promote your digital content. You’ll need to consider this carefully before applying licenses to your content.
Examples - University of Leicester and Rijks museum
- The University of Leicester makes the metadata for its digital collections available under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, while digital items are available under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) license.
- The Rijks Museum makes a subset of its digital collection of high resolution images available under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.
Measures for success
The most basic measure you can carry out is to check that both your resources and the associated descriptive data is clearly licensed.
The purpose of licensing is to encourage the appropriate re-use of resources, and tracking this is not straightforward. Some platforms offer usage statistics. Other useful measures include:
- Gathering a list of places in which re-use is occurring
- Tracking and logging the types of re-use that are occurring
- Statistics from web search engines targeting re-use - Google’s Image Search and TinEye both allow you to identify copies of an image uploaded to the internet
Another tool that might help you assess the re-use of your resources is Measuring the Impact of Digital Resources: the Balanced Value Impact Model from Kings Digital Labs.
More information
Skills and knowledge required
- Knowledge of licensing
Cost
- £££££ - occasional investment required
Resources
- Open data guides from the Open Data Institute
- A consortia of international organisations has created RightsStatements.org to encourage standardisation of copyright information for digitised collections
Make use of Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons stores public domain and freely-licensed educational media content. Contribute content to Wikimedia Commons can open a significant channel for discovery. Read more in our chapter on using popular websites to reach broader audiences.
Create resource packages for teachers
Teachers are often looking for resources that meet specific pedagogical needs which they can use without further adjustment. Creating resources that meet specific and defined pedagogical needs can make it easier for teachers to re-use content.
Example – University of Leicester, Royal Maritime Museum, BFI Screenonline and People’s Collection Wales
- The University of Leicester has created short videos that use digitised images from its Manufacturing Pasts collection, from its Manufacturing Pasts collection, narrated by one of its professors
- The Royal Maritime Museum has created resource packs aimed at Key Stage 2 and 3 teachers and students, based around its digitised resources
- BFI Screenonline has created short videos on the subject of moving images for use in teaching and learning
- The People’s Collection Wales offers learning resources from Key Stage 2 to Post 16
Measures for success
The most basic measure is to evidence the use by educators of the resource packs you create.
Wikimedia Commons provides a range of tools that will help you track the use of your items:
- On any resource page on Wikimedia Commons you can see a list titled ‘File usage on other wikis’ when you open 'More details'. You may also check usage worldwide using the Global Usage function'
- Gain daily statistics for every page on Wikipedia
- The BaGLAMa tool counts monthly hits on images from different source organisations
More information
Skills and knowledge required
- Expertise in the subject matter or curation experience
- Experience of pedagogy and curriculum planning
Cost
- £££££ - occasional investment required
Resources
- The OER Impact Study
Use common data formats for metadata
Make it easy for others to access and use the descriptions you give to items in your collection by using common data formats. Read more in our chapter on using aggregators to boost your collection.
Provide APIs to enhance access to your collection
An API is an online interface that allows software systems to communicate with one another and exchange information. A well-documented API for resources in a digital collection allows third parties to develop new ways to interact with them. Read more in our chapter on ensuring your digital collections reach academic researchers.
Publish metadata describing digitised resources under an extremely permissive license such as CC0
Enabling the reuse of metadata (the data describing resources) can enhance discoverability by making descriptions of the materials, available in a wider range of services and locations. The ‘CC0’ (Creative Commons Zero) public domain declaration essentially puts the data into the public domain making it highly reusable for any purpose.
While there are often practical reasons why there are restrictions on the reuse of a digital resource (eg a high-resolution scan of an image or text), the descriptive data associated with the resource is often not subject to the same considerations, and so often this metadata can be licensed much more permissively than the described resource. Where ‘discoverability’ is concerned, the more widely descriptions of a collection are available, the better.
Examples – University of Leicester and Tate
- The University of Leicester library makes metadata for their digital collections available under a Creative Commons Zero licence, while making their digital items available under Creative Commons Attribution, Non-commercial licence
- The Tate has published data about items in their collection under a Creative Commons Zero licence. This has led to third parties submitting improvements to their data, and the use of the data for a variety of purposes, for example these visualisations of the data by a UK HE researcher.
Measures for success
The most basic measure is whether both your resources and associated descriptive data is clearly licensed. However, the purpose of licensing is to promote appropriate re-use of resources. Tracking re-use is challenging, as you may not be aware of all the places where reuse is occurring. Where specific known services are being used to promote re-use (e.g. Wikimedia, Flickr) they often provide usage statistics. Other useful re-use measures:
- List of places where re-use is occurring, and the type of re-use
- Case studies of specific re-use and the outcomes
Other tools that might help you assess the re-use of your resources are:
- Measuring the Impact of Digital Resources: the Balanced Value Impact Model from King’s Digital Labs
- An Introduction to Google Analytics Segments
- Get started with Google Analytics Academy Courses
More information
Skills and knowledge required
- Licensing
Cost
- £££££ - occasional investment required
Resources
- Video guide to open metadata licensing
- Open data guides from the Open Data Institute
Collaborate with the users of your collection
Engage the existing users of your digital collection in order to enhance it, make it more accessible and create recommendations. Read more in our chapter on creating champions for your digital collections.
Work with suitable partners
Find and partner with organisations that can assist you in exploiting your digital content. Collaboration could take many shapes, but should help you achieve your institutional goals and reach new audiences. Read more in our chapter on creating champions for your digital collections.