DigCCurr Professional Institute: Curation Practices for the Digital Object Lifecycle

About the Institute
  • Join other digital curation practitioners in a week-long intensive institute taught by international digital curation experts
  • Learn about the digital object lifecycle and practical tools for managing your digital collection over time
  • Engage in collaborative discussions with classmates and instructors
  • Reconvene in January to report on and share strategies for the application of the Institute's lessons, tools, and content.

This professional institute consists of one five-day session May 11-16, 2014 and a two-day follow-up session January 5-6, 2015. Each day of the summer session will include lectures, discussion, and hands-on "lab" components. A course pack and a private, online discussion space will be provided to supplement learning and application of the material. An opening reception dinner on Sunday, Continental breakfast, break time snacks and coffee, and a dinner will also be included. This institute is designed to foster skills, knowledge, and community-building among professionals responsible for the curation of digital materials. Participants in the May event will return to Chapel Hill in January, 2014, to discuss their experiences in implementing what they have learned in their own work environments. Participants will compare experiences, lessons learned, and strategies for continuing progress. (Accommodations for January will be the responsibility of the attendee.)

Institute Components (may be subject to some revisions and reorganization):

  • Overview of digital curation definition, scope and main functions
  • Where you see yourself in the digital curation landscape
  • Digital curation program development
  • Engendering trust: processes, procedures and forms of evidence
  • LAB - DRAMBORA in action
  • Understanding audit and certification of trustworthy digital repositories. Unpacking ISO 16363
  • Strategies for engaging data communities
  • Characterizing, analyzing and evaluating the producer information environment
  • Submission and transfer scenarios – push and pull (illustrative examples)
  • Defining submission agreements and policies
  • Strategies for writing policies that can be expressed as rules and rules that can automatically executed
  • LAB - Making requirements machine-actionable
  • Importance of infrastructure independence
  • Overview of digital preservation challenges and opportunities
  • Managing in response to technological change
  • Detaching Bits from their Physical Media: Considerations, Tools and Methods
  • LAB - Curation of Unidentified Files
  • Returning to First Principles: Core Professional Principles to Drive Digital Curation
  • Characterization of digital objects
  • LAB - Assessing File Format Robustness
  • Access and use considerations
  • Access and user interface examples
  • How and why to conduct research on digital collection needs
  • LAB - Analyzing server logs and developing strategies based on what you find
  • Overview and characterization of existing tools
  • LAB - Evaluating set of software options to support a given digital curation workflow
  • Formulating your six-month action plan - task for each individual, with instructors available to provide guidance
  • Summary of action plans
  • Clarifying roles and expectations for the next six months

    • The agenda for the 2014 Institute is under development but will be very similar to the May 2013 agenda. Please note that opening events on Sunday, May 11, will begin at 6:00 p.m.

    Accommodations

    Participants are responsible for their own lodging. A DigCCurr 2014-15 room block has been reserved at the Hampton Inn and Suites for $129/night. Please indicate “DigCCurr” and group code “CUR” when making reservations. Reservations must be received by 04/01/2014. After this date reservations will be accepted on a space a rate available basis only. You may reserve your hotel room by calling the hotel at 919-969-6989 or by clicking on this link: http://hamptoninn.hilton.com/en/hp/groups/personalized/R/RDUCOHX-DGG-20140511/index.jhtml

    Please refer to the institute's accommodations page for further details.

    Registration*

  • Regular registration: $1,150
  • Late registration (after April 1, 2014): $1,300
    • *If you are a grant recipient working on a digital project, we recommend that you check with your program officer to request approval to use available grant funds to attend the institute.

Institute Instructors
  • Drs. Helen Tibbo and Cal Lee, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
  • Dr. Carolyn Hank, from the University of Tennessee.
  • Dr. Nancy McGovern, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology .
  • Lori Richards, from Drexel University.
For more information on the instructors, see the institute's biography page.


For more information, e-mail Dr. Helen Tibbo at [tibbo (at) email (dot)unc (dot) edu] or Dr. Cal Lee at [callee (at) email (dot) unc (dot) edu].

The Digital Professional Institute was initiated as part of the DigCCurr II project, supported by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (Grant Award #RE-05-08-0060-08).