About
These workshops will equip you with the knowledge and skills to:
- Increase visibility of your digital collections
- Evaluate impact and realise the benefits of investment in your digital collections
- Strategically promote your digital collections in appropriate contexts, for a range of audiences
- Encourage collaboration between curators and users of digital collections
- Optimise your collection for discovery via Google and other search tools
- Use web analytics to track and monitor access and usage of your digital collections
If your organisation has digital collections, or plans to develop them, our workshops will help you maximise the reach of those collections online, demonstrate the impact of their usage and help you build for future sustainability.
Why is this important?
The way in which digital collections and individual items are created and maintained on the web will significantly affect the discoverability and use of your resources for teaching, learning and research.
Our spotlight on the digital project identified an ongoing issue of visibility of digital collections online – of the sample collections that we investigated, 20 percent were 'lost' to the web.
Typically this was due to removal of access to the content, poor exposure to search engines or relocation of content within other collections or aggregation services. The resultant poor (or non-existent) search results directly affected the ability of potential users to access and exploit the collection.
By developing workflows aimed at the promotion and discoverability of assets, collection owners can improve the visibility and persistence of their content, as well as increasing the return on investment from their creation.
Format
Our programme is made up of two, one-day workshops, led by subject experts and offering a mixture of discussion and practical activities, alongside opportunities to reflect on your current practices.
The programme is supported by the online guide making your digital collections easier to discover and will include access to pre and post-course resources.
Although designed as a complementary set of workshops, it is possible for you to attend the workshops individually. You will be able to select which workshop(s) you wish to attend when you book.
Who should attend
The resource discovery and impact programme has been designed for anyone who manages, supports and/or promotes digital collections online for learning and research. It will benefit librarians, archivists and information professionals in higher education as well as in the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) sector.
Many of the techniques covered in the course are relevant to resource discovery for all types of collections online, however the course is most relevant to collections that belong directly to institutions including born-digital and digitised resources rather than bought in resources such as commercial e-journal or e-book collections.
For workshop one, participants should:
- Have experience of working with digital collections published on the web
- Be aware of relevant interests of students and researchers within their institution
- Be confident users of web interfaces
- Have the authority to implement practical exercises such as schema.org to one or more digital collections within their institution
For workshop two, participants should:
- Have experience of working with digital collections published on the web
- Be confident users of web interfaces
- Idealy have authority to apply lessons learned to at least one collection.
What we cover
Workshop one: Maximising the use of digital collections in learning and research
Themes
Delegates will learn more about:
- Factors affecting the reuse of digital content by teachers and researchers
- Strategies for promoting digital collections and their content, including case studies exemplifying resource discovery techniques in action
- How Google (and search engines more generally) can index and present digital collections effectively, including the relevant terminology and jargon
- Schema.org as a mechanism to boost online discoverability, including a short practical introduction
Outcomes
Organisations will be able to increase visibility and discoverability of their digital collections and collaboration between curators and academics by applying practical tips and strategic advice in promoting collections.
Workshop two: Measuring usage and impact with digital collections
Themes
Delegates will:
- Understand a range of terminology used in relation to search engine optimisation
- Be aware of a number of approaches to ensuring Google can effectively index their digital collection website(s)
- Be aware of a number of approaches to ensuring Google displays appropriate information from their digital collection website(s) in search results
- Be able to engage with staff at their institution or system providers to discuss improving how their digital collections are indexed by Google
- Understand what 'impact' is in relation to digital collections
- Be introduced to the balanced value impact model (BVIM) as a means of measuring value and impact
- Learn how to use BVIM to design a practical approach to measuring impact of your digital collections
Outcomes
Organisations will be able to use web analytics to monitor, analyse and understand how users navigate their digital collections. They will be able to design an approach to measuring the impact of their digital collections using the balanced value impact model (BVIM).
Pricing and eligibility
The price given is per delegate and includes lunch and refreshments.
Bookings can be made by credit card or purchase order invoice.
If you wish to book the full programme, but send separate delegates on the individual workshops, please contact training@jisc.ac.uk prior to booking.
| Option | Cost |
|---|---|
| Individual workshop | £250 plus VAT1 |
| Full programme2 | £450 plus VAT |
Footnotes
- 1 VAT is charged at 20% of the value of the service. If you are a member of Jisc’s VAT-exempt cost sharing group, and you are able to provide confirmation of the exact taxable/exempt use of the service, we will be able to reduce the amount of VAT chargeable to reflect the taxable business use proportion of the service only. This additional information is required as a result of a change to HMRC policy. Please contact training@jisc.ac.uk if you require more information.
- 2 Applies to an individual sign-up for both workshops, or an institutional registration where different members of staff attend workshop one and workshop two.