Precis Part 3
National Digital Forum 2005
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21-22 November
Venue: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa)
Writer: Lisa McMullan
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End-User perspectives
How are audiences and communities using digital content?
Dean Stanley, Brian Opie, Neil Cowley, Alex Smith
Dean Stanley
Brooklyn School, Wellington
Brooklyn School is a decile ten school. Mr Stanley’s presentation focused on learning through the use of ICT as a fundamental tool to support learning and teaching.
Children Have Ownership of Schooling (CHAOS) is a three-year project which has been trialed at Brooklyn School during 2005. Students and teachers have been trialing the use of tablets and other ICT resources as learning aids and models have been put in place for numeracy and literacy, gathering information outside the classroom, and for presenting at years seven and eight.
On-screen examples were used to display how numeracy lessons are conducted using a spreadsheet and rewards to self-check work. An e-book was also presented on-screen to
exhibit the nature and range of work produced.
The use of ICT to gather and present information has led to students spending more time on presentation as opposed to processing it.
Year one students have low ICT capabilities and the learning focus is on literacy and numeracy. At the year 5-6 level students are encouraged to use tablets and digital cameras outside the school to gather information which they later publish using databases in the classroom.
The capability of year eight students is being evaluated in the areas of CD and web based production, animation and desk top publishing. Once this has been determined a programme will be developed to go down through the school to enable students to enter year eight with the necessary skills to achieve. These models will be refined during 2006, and the programme will be embedded in 2007.
Brian Opie
Senior Lecturer, Victoria University
Mr Opie described an online poetry project he has been working on. The long term aim of this electronic text research project is to provide a publicly accessible web-based edition of all five volumes of Golder’s poetry.
In 1852 Golder’s work was the first volume of poetry printed and published in New Zealand. His works give a clear picture about what life was like in the colonial days of New Zealand. Largely Golder’s poems have never been reprinted and access has been limited to those who knew about his work or those who could find copies of the original publications. This project provides access to texts not previously available in entirety. By adopting archival standards for material digitisation an alternate means for research and preservation is provided.
Digitising Golder’s material allowed for the inclusion of a wide-range of multi-media experiences, enabling broader enjoyment and understanding of the poems.
Mr Opie said it’s easy to say the public is interested in cultural heritage, or cultural identity depends on collective memory, but it is much harder to give reasons why a particular document outside the set of documents acknowledged as culturally significant should be digitised. He posed the question - why undertake this project and who are the users or community who will benefit.
People’s interest in poetry varies, as do user groups, and Mr Opie pondered - which of them justifies the cost of digitising material?
He suggested that by making Golder’s poetry accessible again is to implement the NDS’s ethical commitment to content. Mr Opie complimented the people who secured the strong content dimension to the NDS.
He also suggested conservation could fit into the NDS as the fourth ‘C’, and believes the absence of conservation from the NDS limits the effectiveness of any discussion about content.
By using the consumer as its default model of the individual the strategy overlooks the role of memory in the circulation of information between people, in effect without memory there is no information. In social terms unless society gives a higher priority to the role of the institutions charged with maintaining society’s collective memory the crucial social functions of ICTs can’t be performed or the benefits fully realised.
A justification of the Golder electronic edition then is consistent with Golder’s own view of the important social function of his poetry, in that it enlivens and extends the memory of New Zealand society and other societies who share a similar ancestral heritage.
The issue is not if the site has users but if it has informed readers and whether its’ construction and design assists any readers who find themselves in contact with it, to gain understanding and relevance.
Neil Cowley
Manager Information Technology and Development, Te Papa
…in the future people will expect his type of technology,
we need to be ready and understand what they want.
Mr Cowley spoke about a pilot trial at Te Papa which provided mobile exhibition guides (MEGs) to visitors.
Twelve hand-held iPAQ computers provided access to additional information about the Made in New Zealand exhibition. The pilot ran between June – October 2005 and 152 people provided feedback. The MEGs provided audio narration with visuals, historic footage, artist interviews, and animated content such as story telling.
The visitors surveyed could provide feedback on a number of topics while on tour.
The key findings were:
- Higher levels of prior experience than anticipated (half of the users had prior experience)
- 77% of users found them quite straight forward to use
- 72% really enjoyed the content
- 81% found the amount of information provided was about right
- 72% felt their visit was improved by the use of the MEG (2% said use of MEGS made visit worse, 26% were neutral on this point – similar findings to overseas studies)
- 80% described the device as user-friendly
- 84% liked the interactive format
- Most people wanted to follow a route not prescribed
- Most people wanted less surveying and gaming options.
It was also noted that people using MEGs stayed longer than non-MEG users, and people enjoyed having extra control over their experience. People also wanted access to a carry case or strap to aid portability.
In summary Mr Cowley said that visitors engaged with the experience and found it appealing. In the future a second generation MEG system will be considered for specific exhibitions (cost profits inclusion of all exhibits). Mobile phones may also be used to deliver this type of experience.
Alex Smith
Shift, Te Ara
Mr Smith discussed Shift’s involvement with the Ministry of Culture and Heritage’s project to create Te Ara, an online encyclopedia about New Zealand.
This ten-year project resulted in the first stages of Te Ara being launched early in 2005. Additional sections will be released as they are completed.
Determining user needs was an integral part of the project. More than 100 people have been involved with focus group research. Students were expected to be high users of the site so early user research focused on this group, a variety of age-groups were included.
Personas were developed to encourage project members to focus on the user and associated needs. Mr Smith described the card sorting technique which was used to define how users expect information to be categorised. The results were fairly similar across the different user groups.
As part of the user interface design process HTML prototypes were developed and implemented for user testing. The aim of this was to allow for early, low-cost improvements. Amendments were made to accommodate the test results and parallel development continued for another year and a half until the site was launched.
After the site was launched usability testing was conducted. Users were given a set of tasks that they would be likely to want to achieve on the site and their progress was observed. Patterns quickly emerged and it was clear that some parts of the site worked well e.g. New Zealand in Brief, and other parts less well e.g. the home page. This information was used to enhance the site.
Continued evaluation and ongoing development are the next steps for Te Ara.
www.teara.govt.nz
Questions and answers
Mr Cowley was asked how the results from the user trial compared to those from other countries and does the level of interest equate to that overseas?
A summary of a comparative analysis was not possible at this time.
Mr Stanley was asked about the value using of a tablet in the out-of-school learning environment and this relates to the curriculum?
He replied that access to a tablet highly motivates students. They spend more
time on presentation as opposed to processing. The portability of tablets makes
them more desirable than other ICT options.
How can we preserve social history in perpetuity to provide for audiences in the future?
Mr Stanley suggested that in the school environment it may be that work is
saved at the end of the year and given to the students.
Clarification was sought about how to choose consumers for testing, specifically in relation to Te Ara. And in relation to Te Papa, how will health issues be addressed concerning the use of cell phones to deliver mobile interactive experiences?
Mr Smith said in early in the early stages of the Te Ara project it was
determined, that to make the best use of time and budgets, testing would
be targeted to the high user group of students. Broader audiences were
tested as well.
Mr Cowley said that ultimately it is the audience that drives services and
in order to achieve maximum delivery mobile phones are an option to be
considered.
Mr Smith was asked if user behaviour on the Te Ara website is monitored in an ongoing manner?
He said the best way to monitor user behaviour is to conduct on-going user
research, ideally annually or bi-anually. Results should drive a development
programme, followed by checks and testing. Online surveys are another
method to be considered.
An enquiry was made to Brian Opie as to whether any more poetry focused projects are on the horizon.
He answered that the current is project is far from being completed, there
no short term plans for a similar project.
Another question from the floor enquired as to whether Mr Smith had the impression that cultural and heritage institutions are taking more note of users groups, and what are the current trends.
Mr Smith said he thinks a lot of providers are slow to take users needs into
account and the commercial sector is more advanced at engaging users.
The web industry is still determining best practices.
Iwi and GLAM’s (Galleries, Libraries Archives and Museums)– a Collaborative Potential
Dr Jane Hunter, Jim Nicholls, Dr David Bainbridge, Moka Apiti
John Mohi gave apologies from Arapata Hakiwai and Shaun Hooper
Dr Jane Hunter
University of Queensland, Australia
Ms Hunter spoke about her work with indigenous knowledge management and access constraint mechanisms.
While Ms Hunter was on a scholarship at the Smithsonian National Museum of American Indian some key problem areas were identified in relation to management of cultural and heritage material. The key problem areas were: access constraints, rights management, and identifying what cultural and heritage material shouldn’t be on the web.
Many communities didn’t feel they had the resources to care for historic items but there was a clear desire for digital repatriation out to local knowledge bases. It was necessary to find a cost effective ICT method to facilitate digital repatriation and secure indigenous rights management.
As a result draft software has been developed (IKM) to address this and is being used by several communities. Once an item has been digitised and uploaded to a local knowledge base, IKM software enables the local community people to determine access rights and constraints, care methods, and it is possible to add written or spoken annotations. This information is fed back to the holding institutions and becomes a knowledge spiral.
Screen dumps were used to exemplify access restrictions. Access constraints are based on a back-end schema editor which is designed to be flexible so that a community can add and remove attributes and values.
Ms Hunter said investigations are currently underway to explore how template licences can be refined and modified for indigenous collections. Analysis has shown that Shibboleth does not fully address these issues.
IKM software enables ontology and mapping based searches. Another capability is the ability to incorporate multi-media presentations, currently SMILE software is being used. Investigations are progressing with 3D object annotation.
Another project Ms Hunter is involved with uses broad band networks with video conference to enable groups to collaboratively view and determine exhibition guidelines – this is the Vannotea Project.
Investigations are also underway to define a common data model or ontology to enable a variety of collections to be integrated. What’s needed, Ms Hunter said, is a way of trying to use ontologies to enhance the semantic interoperability to enable a common understanding across heterogenous collections. Once these are developed simple search and browse methods will be available. Ms Hunter displayed how an ontological interface is used to link different collections.
Ms Hunter also touched on the work that Shaun Hooper is interested in. This work layers cultural knowledge onto maps which enables spatial searching and retrieving. At times it is necessary to restrict access to this material, the example of the location of cave paintings was given. And yet, Ms Hunter said, at times it is desirable to share this information. Directing firefighters to the locations of these important cultural works was used to exemplify this type of situation.
Ms Hunter concluded by saying these are examples of complex situations that need to be handled with adaptable and flexible approaches.
http://metadata.net/IKM/
Jim Nicholls, Hauraki Māori Trust Board
Dr David Bainbridge, Waikato University
Our interest is driven by our passion to educate our children, Mr Nicholls
Mr Nicholls and Dr Bainbridge conducted a joint presentation about the Hauraki digital experience with Greenstone software, Waikato University. The aim of Greenstone is to allow iwi-hapu to organise, preserve and access data with the emphasis on access.
The Hauraki project was born from a desire to do something to something for children. Mr Nicholls said our children need to hear the stories of kaumatua and kuia to know and understand their cultural heritage. He said our schools need access to iwi/hapu knowledge to share in the richness of our tikanga. For this project information that was inaccessible to our children has been gathered.
Dr Bainbridge said the Greenstone Project has been running for 10 years. It is a New Zealand grown product used internationally, but not widely used in New Zealand.
Greenstone features:
- Example media: text, newspapers, photos, music, audio, and video.
- Example languages: Te Reo, Arabic, Chinese, English, German, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, Thai.
- Accessibility: over the Web, CD Rom, DVD.
- Standards: Dublin Core, Z39.50, OAI, METS.
Mr Nicholls described the process involved with applying the Greenstone software and developing content to meet the needs of 14 Hauraki tribes and other users. He provided onscreen examples of the content that has been developed. These examples included kohanga information, Te Tiriti o Waitangi claims processes and documentation, contributors, stories and photos. The multi-media nature of the software allows the use of audio and video. Stories can be told in Te Reo if desired.
Mr Nicholls thanked Dr Bainbridge and Waikato University for their roles in the project. He also said that the journey is far from over and there are still many things to do in terms of testing and trialing to ensure the system is robust enough to deal with the issues that the tribes want it to deal with.
Dr Bainbridge drew attention to the Greenstone Librarian Interface which is software used by designers of collections such as the Hauraki example. The software enables collections to be enriched by the addition of metadata and browse controls. It also has many other functions.
Dr Bainbridge would like to see the Greenstone software used more widely in New Zealand and Waikato University would like to negotiate with interested parties to further the work being done in this area.
Mr Nicholls and Dr Bainbridge acknowledged support from the National Turnbull Library and the Maori Purposes Fund Board.
www.greenstone.org
Moka Apiti
Tainui and Ngati Porou
History Works Te Takoto o Te Ao Participatory GIS, A Māori Perspective
…what’s the purpose, what’s the benefit, who is this information going to… …don’t go in with the glass half full, go in with it half empty…
Mr Apiti presented a visual presentation and analysis of GIS information.
Mr Apiti started his presentation with a high level description of GIS capabilities and processes. He explained how information is gathered from a variety of sources and compressed to produce GIS images. GIS images assist Māori with:
- Treaty of Waitangi claims.
- Direct negotiations with the Crown and government.
- Asset management and development.
- Resource management.
Participatory GIS is the involvement of communities to define what the end user wants. Mr Apiti said this requires input from the people who have been involved with the area and/or whakapapa to the area.
Mr Apiti said participatory GIS mapping starts with the marae and determining what whakapapa means alongside oral traditions. He questioned why it would be desirable to put Kōrero onto GIS which could then be used by another person, or interpreted in a way other than how it was intended.
Mr Apiti uses his skills to assist iwi with Te Tiriti o Waitangi claims, preserving culture and heritage sites eg mapping wahi tapu sites, RMA purposes, demographics, land management and farming activities, as well as planning for the future.
He said ‘in the participatory process it’s not for you to tell ‘them’ what’s right and wrong, it’s for ‘them’ to tell you’. The process must be transparent. Experience of exploitation can lead to reluctance to work with other groups, therefore it is important to take the project to the group at each step.
Questions and answers
Jane Hunter was asked what analysis methods were used to derive the top 10 level classes.
Her reply was that six organisations contributed to a two-day workshop
to determine how specific collections could relate. Proposals were put
forward, discussed and agreement was achieved at the top level.
Ms Hunter was also asked how people can access the IKM software, and a comment was made about the exciting developments with the Hauraki digital project.
The IKM software is now with the University Queensland and will be made
available open-source within the next week via the Source Forge website.
Mr Nicholls said that the Greenstone/Hauraki project is not online yet,
the information shown is mostly part of a treaty claim. Permissions are still
to be gained from contributors. The software is available open-source via
the Source Forge website.
Collections Australia Network
Mark Clayton
National Project Director
…and AMOL begot CAN…
Mr Clayton discussed the redevelopment of Australian Museums and Galleries On Line (AMOL) to Collections Australia Network (CAN).
Australian Museums and Galleries On Line (AMOL) is a portal providing access to and information about works in Australian museums, galleries and historic societies.
It has been operating since 1994, and originally was just an online collections database. AMOL has been technically and architecturally redesigned four times. The most significant makeover began in January 2004, when the Powerhouse Museum, KE Software and Social Change Online started work.
Currently it provides search access to 500,000 collection records and 54,000 images, contributed by some 97 collecting institutions.
In 2002 a key needs study was conducted by Deakin University, the following recommendations were made:
- Uniform system of cataloguing to maximise access to heritage collections and to allow for greater sector wide integration of documentation systems.
- Digitisation of collections, i.e. the creation of digital image libraries to link to the WWW to provide remote access to our heritage collections.
- Small Museums Collecting institutions (SMCs) were singled out as those at greatest risk of missing out on the benefits of collection
digitisation, electronic promotion and documentation standardisation.
- Increase convergence between collecting sector.
In 2002 a business analysis requirements report noted: an unclear focus; under-utilisation by SMCs; functional short-comings; and a lack of Collaboration with the non-museum sector. The report identified the CAN website would: focus on small/medium and regional collections, facilitate collaboration between archives, galleries, libraries and museums; and be sustainable.
In 2003 a survey of 360 SMCs revealed that 85% had computers, 71% had a computer with network connection and 52% used software based CMS.
In redeveloping AMOL to build CAN they were aware that the new services and overall design needed to be cognisant of some fundamental characteristics of the SMC sector:
- lack of experience to support adequate collection documentation
- lack of resource availability and skills to support digitisation projects
- lack of access to regular accredited museum training
- relative age of many workers
- mostly volunteer
- a strong working relationship with existing, state based, heritage support agencies
- reliance on dial-up rather than broadband.
CAN seeks to address some of the shortcomings listed above by providing SMCs with the means to:
- Increase their capacity to maintain sophisticated collection on their own website and increase quality of collection documentation.
- Provide SMC and regional collecting institutions with a site-hosting service on a single CAN domain.
- Improve the infrastructure for storing large volumes of digitised material.
- Increase training and resources for the development of part-time and volunteer personnel.
- Develop a one-stop-shop environment on CAN with a series of tools and services where CAN partners can compose, design and disseminate all kinds of content to help publicise the activities of their organisations, or disseminate scholarly outreach material.
- Allow for SMC content to be harvested by relevant local, state and national tourism, education and research authorities.
Mr Clayton demonstrated parts of the CAN website (home page, now showing, what’s on, my space and the administration area). Things Mr Clayton would do differently if starting all over again include:
- a narrower scope with staggered implementation
- wider, larger and more meaningful consultation
- open source software solutions
- in-house redevelopment rather than out-source
- integrated policy framework
Mr Clayton listed the big issues faced through the redevelopment project as: governance, ownership, open source, funding, quality control, interoperability, training, retaining knowledge and skills, identity crisis, licencing and being hung up on perfection.
www.collectionsaustralia.net
Questions and answers
A comment from the floor emphasised that open source software is not without cost, sometimes costs are invisible.
Mr Clayton agreed that there are limitations with open source
products. CAN often alters open source products and this involves
cost. It may be that CAN moves back to a proprietry product, but
at the moment this type of product is not meeting the needs of CAN.
Mr Clayton was asked what training he would resource if funding was not an issue.
Mr Clayton said he would double staff numbers from 1.5 to three.
Ideally we would keep figures about who is attending workshops, how many are attending and the level of content that is generate post-workshops. This information would help present a sound business case for future funding requests.
An enquiry was made regarding the level of training provided to the communities.
The annual travel budget for CAN is $10,000 per year. As a result more workshops
are conducted in the eastern states. The intention is provide
follow-up training, ideally a minimum of two training sessions.
A lot of follow-up occurs via phone and email.
The observation was made that small archives and libraries do not provide comprehensive computer access and this can be an impediment.
Mr Clayton acknowledged that not all institutions will be swept
up in the wave forward and perhaps this is something to be addressed in the NDS.
Conference wrap-up
Jill Koelling
Executive Director
Collaborative Digitization Project
Ms Koelling began by applauding the outstanding questions that were asked during the forum.
She emphasised that it doesn’t matter what organisation you are from, what your location is, what it is you do, or what your goal is - it’s all about people.
Key themes
- Audience – who are they (multiple), and they all expect something different.
- Collaboration – such as this forum.
- Sustainability – funding, need to source multiple streams and some of it will some from your pocket.
- Rights management – who owns it, who should be able to see it, control. Technology can assist but need to consult with audiences.
- Trust – an important element in any digital collaborative project, and it takes time and commitment to achieve this.
- Scalability – aim to develop projects that can grow so that it is not necessary to start from scratch later.
- Interoperability – systems must be accessible and be available to all New Zealanders and secondarily –to the world.
Questions and answers
In response to comments and questions from the Chair Ms Koelling added the following comments.
Formal governance is a good idea. Prioritisation of what to digitise and how to digitise will become clear through end-user consultation. Asking end-users to select their top five priorities from a list of ideas is an ideal way of doing this.
It is also helpful to conduct collection surveys across institutions to identify the top five common topic areas – before a staged approach is planned. Regional consultation is also informative and can help with prioritisation. Input by advisory groups into each project is beneficial.
The storage of huge files is beyond the capability of many organisations, where do you see this fitting into the NDS?
The CDP offers a storage solution for these types of partners.
Their membership fees help support the infrastructure for the
long-term storage of digital content. Collaboration is necessary
for long-term storage, and the refreshment and migration of files.
The last comment was about the forum and how it relates to the NDS. This person wondered if this is the National Digital Forum or the National Digitisation Forum. ‘Digital issues go way beyond digitisation and this is not the only way. An opportunity exists to collect born digital material as well’. A personal concern was expressed about priority being given to digitising material.
The response from the Chair was that what started with digitisation
four years ago has evolved through the NDS. The Chair acknowledged
Sue Sutherland’s presentation which referred to citizen created material
and born digital content. ‘However, the means to unlocking New Zealand’s
taonga (treasure) will be through massive digitisation projects…both – and is the way
forward’.
Poroporoaki
Te Taru White
Kaihautu
Te Papa
Hutia te rito o te harakeke kei whea te kōmako e kō e koia mai koirā?
He aha te mea nui o te ao māku e kī atu - he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
Take away the central shoot of the flax bush and where will the bell bird sing its’ praises?
If you ask me what is the most important creation of all I will tell you - it is people, it is people, it is people.
It is people who control technology and not the other way around…it will ensure integrity of purpose and the process that goes with it.
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