Some facts and figures on JISC digi impact

Paola Marchionni, Digitisation Programme Manager, p.marchionni@jisc.ac.uk @paolamarchionni

Peter Findlay, Digitisation Programme Manager, p.findlay@jisc.ac.uk @PFindlayJISC

[Notes on slide 1]

The content of these slides (or better, the great majority of it) derives from an initial analysis of the results of a survey the JISC Content team circulated among previously funded projects (since 2007) in the areas of digitisation and content, see all projects here http://www.jisc.ac.uk/digitisation.

The survey aimed to find out more about how digitised collections were being used and the impact such projects have had on their hosting institutions and more broadly.

slide 3

Some toolsTIDSR - http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr/

Content projects survey

[Notes on slide 3]

The JISC Content team developed the Toolkit for the Impact of Scholarly Digitised Resources (TIDSR) http://microsites.oii.ox.ac.uk/tidsr to provide some guidance to projects and their institutions on the range of qualitative and quantitative methods that can be used to gather data about usage and impact of digitised resources. The toolkit also contains case studies, reports, and a knowledge base with articles. This is now embedded within the JISC digitisation and content programmes. Many respondents to the survey used the approaches suggested in the toolkit to measure usage and impact.

The survey was circulated to 103 projects and 62 responses were received. These slides contain only some high level findings. We are conducting a more thorough interpretation of the results which we plan to make available as soon as possible.

slide 5

Stories of impact… impact for whom?

[Notes on slide 5]

The survey asked both quantitative and qualitative questions about the digital collections that had been created or enhanced, how these collections were being used and what impact the JISC-funded work had had within institutions. As expected, a number of respondents didn’t always have the information requested because they hadn’t necessarily been capturing the data, or because it wasn’t available to them (eg in the case of commercial partnerships).

So, a disclaimer: these “stories” of impact represent only a partial picture, but one which however reveals some initial indicative patterns of impact and areas where concrete positive change has been identified and which we could pursue.

We also looked at impact from the point of view of who is being affected by the change, what kind of indicators might be useful to consider in relation to different stakeholders, recognising that there are not always clear boundaries among the different stakeholders affected and that over time some stakeholders maybe affected in different degrees.

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Students84% of respondents said digi collections are embedded in courses – 16% don’t know

Higher attainment Digital literacyEmployment opportunities

“all students using manuscripts students trialling different searches- “great to work with Zandra, with a real in an English language course information seeking skills

design team… getting to know what it got first-class degrees” could be like in the industry”

[Notes on slide 7]

Responses to the survey highlighted that the great majority of collections that have been digitised or clustered are now embedded in courses. This ranges from being embedded in courses within the institution that created the digital collections (the majority of cases), to being part of courses within other institutions in the UK, with some embedded within courses internationally. It was clear that that respondents were not always aware of the extent to which collections were embedded, so instances of collections being embedded into courses could actually be greater.

Higher attainment: quote from lecturer at the University of Manchester. The John Rylands Library digitised medieval manuscripts as part of the “In the begynning” project http://bit.ly/RSVJJ8 . The collection is delivered through the Library’s digital collections platform http://enriqueta.man.ac.uk/luna/servlet/Man4MedievalVC~4~4

Other respondents to the survey also mentioned that students achieved better quality results when engaging with digitised content from special collections, eg resources such as HISTPOP (Historical Online Population Reports) http://www.histpop.org and STEM WISHEES (STEM Writing in Schools Higher Education and Employment Settings) http://www.thinkingwriting.qmul.ac.uk/wishees

Students attainments level seems a useful indicator of the positive change that a digital resource can bring about.

Digital literacy: interaction with digital collections also contributes to developing digital literacy skills. The “Connected Histories” project http://www.connectedhistories.org/ set up a students placement and as part of their work students had to blog http://connectedhistories.tumblr.com/ about their use of the collection. The researchers of tomorrow’s report highlighted how researchers need more training in information seeking skills http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jul/11/researchers-of-tomorrow-report.

Employment opportunities: a number of projects have offered students paid work placements, which have provided them with opportunities to increase their technical knowledge and skills and also get a flavour for what it means to work in a particular industry. The quote on the slide is from a video (http://bit.ly/zandravideo) produced by the Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection project http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/content2011_2013/ZandraRhodes.aspx which features students working in the studio of fashion designer Zandra Rhodes to help digitise her collection of garments and sketches.

Researchers

Research outputs,citations

“…19th C pamphlets collection had around 51,800 PDF downloads and over 4,380 citation captures” Dr Julian Ball

New research methods

“We’re discovering research questions that we didn’t have when we started” Prof Peter Ainsworth

Research funding

GrassPortal secured EC funding of 350 Euros to work on sustainable development of perennial grasses as biofuel crop.

[Notes on slide 9]

Direct impact on research was more difficult to establish, there was less data available from respondents, and perhaps it’s more difficult to identify indicators. Traditional indicators such as published articles and citations presented some problems, eg: the long lead time for papers to be published (some projects had launched relatively recently and wouldn’t expect to have made an impact on research publications yet); digital resources don’t always offer downloadable citations making it difficult to track citations at a later stage; academics still tend to cite the paper-based version of a resource even if they consult the digital version; some projects simply did not have that information because they never sought to track it.

Research outputs: these figures which refer to the JISC-funded 19th C Pamphlets projects based at the University of Southampton were published in the Guardian Higher Education Network blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jul/09/university-of-southampton-library-digitising-resources (not the JISC survey). The collection is delivered via JSTOR http://about.jstor.org/content/19th-century-british-pamphlets.

New research methods: The availability of large corpuses of digital data allows more sophisticated ways of interrogating such data and conducting research than previously possible, as Prof Peter Ainsworth states in One Culture, CLIR, http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub151/pub151.pdf p 22, the evaluation report for phase one of the Digging into Data challenges programme, which JISC supported with other partners http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/diggingintodata.aspx.

Research funding: a number of respondents revealed that the experience gained and outputs created though their digitisation/content project provided the basis for obtaining further funding for other research projects, whether at national or international level. One example of this is the GrassPortal project http://www.grassportal.org, University of Sheffield.

slide 11

Institutions90% developed a more strategic approach to digi

Skills, strategy and Increasing profileIncome and savings infrastructure 84%

said project enabled to increase 72% attracted further project89% said project allowed inst profile of own collection/institution. funding. British Library Sound to increase capacity and Uni of Bradford attracted American

Archive calculated aninfrastructure to create and MA students thanks to their profileestimated saving to the sustain digitised content in 3D digitisation of human remains HE sector of about £756,000

[Notes on slide 11]

Projects involving digitisation of content and related activities bring benefits not only to primary users of that content but also to institutions at strategic level and to the whole of the HE sector, and beyond.

Skills, strategy and infrastructures89% of respondents to the survey said that through JISC funding their team/institution increased its digital capacity and infrastructure so that it is now in a better position to create and sustain digital content in the future. 76% of respondents also felt working on the project had a positive impact on relationships within their institution such as through collaborative working or working more effectively.95% of respondents said the funding allowed the team/Principal Investigator to increase their knowledge and skills in creation and management of digitised content.

Increasing profileInstitutions increased their profile through various means, including local and national press coverage, conference presentations, social media and dissemination activities within their own interest area/networks. Profile raising activities generated increased use of collections and requests to use digitised items commercially, thus leading to income streams; new partnerships; project/institution being held as example of good practice in a specific area; institutions using digitised collection as a way of showcasing a USP in international recruitment.

The Digitised Diseases project http://barc.sls.brad.ac.uk/3dbones/ at the University of Bradford has been able to attract international students after building up an international reputation for their work on 3D digitisation of human remains.

Income and savingsOnly a minority of projects have developed income streams from their collection, with the majority never setting up to do this. However, many respondents highlighted how JISC funding contributed to achieving efficiencies through internal cost savings, and that other types of non-financial benefits were achieved . Reduced costs to users for consulting digitised material was also mentioned as part of “financial benefits”.

For example, the British Library Sound Archive http://sounds.bl.uk/: digitised 42,000 fully documented sound recording files. Based on institutional fees for paid subscription archives, estimated value is £2700 x 280 institutions = £756,000 p.a.

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slide 13

Communities

Widening participation Open innovation Best practice

89% of respondents said project Crowdsourcing employed as The Great War Archive modelallowed them to develop partnerships digitisation and research was replicated nationally andwith institutions/organisations methodology. Old Weatherinternationally by Europeanathat benefited their own institution project :1m log book

pages transcribed, 28k volunteers

[Notes on slide 13]

Digitisation and digital content creation/curation activities provide opportunities for institutions to deliver their business and community engagement agenda in innovative ways often through partnerships within and outside the HE sector, including private organisations.

Widening participation: 89% of respondents to the survey said that their project allowed them to develop partnerships with other institutions/organisations that benefited their institution. 89% also felt that the projects allowed them to build, or further develop, new partnerships with academics and researchers.

Projects within the JISC Developing community content programme http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/communitycontent.aspx and the eContent programme 2011, Strand B: developing community collections http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/econtent11.aspx have deliberately engaged with communities outside of the Higher Education sector. The benefits identified by these projects include: strengthening strategic links between HE institutions and local communities; access to special collections outside of the HE sector; more digitisation of content or enhancing existing digital content; skills development and exchange; mutual promotional opportunities. (Screen grab from World of Kays project http://www.worldofkays.org/)

Open innovation: the Old Weather project http://www.oldweather.org/ produced a digital interface to engage volunteers from the general public to transcribe WW1 Royal Navy ships’ logs to aid scientists in research on climate change. Scientists alone could have never done this type of work. The project terminated recently but as in previous projects run by the same team, it is likely that the team will produced scientific papers co-authored with citizens who contributed to the transcription of the log books. Best practice: a useful indicator of impact is the degree to which approaches developed by one project are adopted by others within or outside the sector. The model for collecting and digitising items belonging to the general public through roadshows which was developed by the Great War Archive http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/ was emulated by Europeana http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en resulting in collection days gathering WW1 related material being held across Europe.

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slide 15

Next stepThe JISC Content team is analysing the results of the survey in a more comprehensive way.

Once analysis is complete we will publish a fuller report on the survey results.

The findings of the survey will feed into future JISC activity in the area of digitisation and content and impact assessment more generally.

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CreditsAll images are web site screen grabs apart form:

Slide 9, from left to right: Image 1: ChemConnector http://www.flickr.com/photos/26814164@N05/6003727019/ - Image2: University of Maryland: http://www.flickr.com/photos/umdnews/5985718936Image3: Dave Gray: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davegray/3210489602/ -

Slide 11: from left to right :Image 1: Earth Infrastructures http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthinfrastructure/6004632877/

Apart from images on slides 9 and 11