Title: Professional, Disciplinary, Institutional, Organizational or Cultural Context (Dimension 3 of Matrix of Digital Curation Knowledge and Competencies)
Author: Christopher (Cal) Lee, School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Draft: June 17, 2009 (Version 18)
Project: DigCCurr (IMLS Grant # RE-05-06-0044)

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 3.0 License
[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/]

The table below summarizes professional, disciplinary, institutional, organizational or cultural context. This is the third of the DigCCurr Matrix dimensions. It can be important to understand challenges, opportunities and characteristics of particular types of work contexts (e.g. social science data archive in a university, commercial collection of scanned page images, state archives, serving a population with specific cultural norms).

Work Context Categories and Elements Explanation or Elaboration
Professional Context  
History of Professional Activities History of activities relevant to digital curation in various streams of work activity:
  • Care and properties of physical media
  • Hardware and software interoperability
  • Long-term management of institutional archives and personal papers
  • Social science data archives
  • Natural and physical science data archives (e.g. earth and space science)
  • Management and provision of access to digital library collections
Professional Development Important elements of and strategies for actively participating in a profession and remaining aware of current state of professional principles and practices (e.g. professional associations, conferences, continuing education)
Disciplinary Context  
Institutional or Organizational Context  
Characteristics of Information and Record Creating Environments  
Cultural Context "The distinctive ideas, customs, social behaviour, products, or way of life of a particular society, people, or period." [1]

References

[1] "Culture." Oxford English Dictionary. Draft Revision. June 2009.