Kaptur – seven months into the project (7/18)

Posted: May 9, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: monthly reports, project posts | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This is our update for the end of the seventh month:

WP1: Project Management

WP3: Technical Infrastructure

WP4: Modelling

  • University of the Arts London (UAL) held its first Research Data Management (RDM) working group meeting on Tuesday 10th April; the Kaptur RDM discussion paper was amended for UAL’s use and went forward to their Research Standards and Development Committee on 1st May.

WP7: Dissemination

  • The Project Officers were asked to suggest three ways to increase the profile of the project, including: an internal event, an internal website/newsletter/email, and something innovative.
  • The GSA Project Officer has had some Web training with a view to adding information about the project to the Research Web pages; Kaptur has already been promoted on the GSA Facebook page.
  • The Goldsmiths Project Officer has given two presentations about the project on 26 April and on 2 May for Library and Research Office staff; an item will also be in the May edition of the Goldsmiths Research newsletter.
  • The UCA Project Officer gave a presentation at the Staff Research Conference about the challenges and opportunities of running an institutional repository which included information on the Kultur, Kultivate, eNova and Kaptur projects; a targeted email will be sent to faculty librarians to provide more information about Kaptur.
  • The UAL Project Officer will submit a paper for the UAL Information Services Staff Conference (September), and an article for the Library Services Newsletter.
  • Watch this space for more creative dissemination ideas, several are in discussion including events, videos, music and artwork!

4. Issues/challenges

Following the original vision of the Principal Investigator (Project Director) the collaborative aspect of KAPTUR is working really well, as in particular at this month’s meeting we were able to learn and reflect on different approaches at each institution regarding the modelling workpackage.

The challenge this month has been to select the system for the KAPTUR pilot technical infrastructure. The research method led to a short-list of five systems, all of which were similar in ‘score’ based on the user requirements, this required the application of an additional selection process. A blog post will be forthcoming about this.

Mackintosh and visual arts research data at The Glasgow School of Art

Posted: April 24, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: meetings | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Entrance to The Glasgow School of Art. Photo MTG

Last week the Kaptur team gathered for a project meeting in The Glasgow School of Arts’ incredible Mackintosh building. Representatives from all the project partners met in the Mackintosh room (also known within the School as the Design Room):

“In 1906 Mackintosh was asked to include a new, more formal Board Room into the building and used part of an existing studio on the ground floor, to the left of the entrance. In return what had been the School’s original Board Room, a chiefly white interior on the first floor was turned into a design room. This space (Studio 37) has now reverted back to a meeting room.”

[Text on wall next to the Mackintosh Room]

Fireplace in the Mackintosh Room. Photo MTG

A photograph of the Mackintosh Room by Bedford Lemere (described as The Board Room) shows the fireplace as it was in 1910 [Buchanan (2004) Mackintosh’s Masterwork: The Glasgow School of Art, pp.114-5].

The purpose of the meeting was:

  1. for the project team to be updated about work at each institution in order to enhance collaboration and lessons learned across the partner institutions;
  2. to agree and assign tasks for promoting Kaptur internally/externally to the institutions;
  3. to discuss applicability of the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) tools for the modelling and technical work packages.

This was addressed as follows:

  1. each Project Officer reported progress on the development of the institutional RDM policies; the Technical Manager reported progress on the Technical Analysis;
  2. each Project Officer will suggest three different ways of awareness raising within their institution and this will be reported in the next Kaptur monthly blog post;
  3. we were delighted to welcome Martin Donnelly, Senior Institutional Support Officer, DCC to the meeting; it was very useful to ask specific questions within the context of the project team.

Key points to share:

  • A need for awareness raising about managing research data within the institutions through promotion of Kaptur. One of the points to engage researchers is when they ask the institution for Letters of Support for their funding applications.
  • The awareness raising needs to be clear about the differences between data storage and data curation; although the storage aspect may still be an incentive for researchers to manage their research data effectively.
  • On RDM policy development there was some discussion about the pros and cons of a small more research-focused working group compared to a larger working group which may help with embedding and take-up of the policy as well as awareness raising, but may take longer to discuss and approve a policy. Two institutions have smaller working groups and the other two plan working groups with a wider range of stakeholders. It is useful to share these experiences collaboratively.

Mackintosh and visual arts research data:

Detail of bookcase, dark stained oak with leaded glass (1901.038). Photo MTG

This bookcase was originally designed in 1901 by Mackintosh for the drawing room at Windyhill. It was presented to the School by William Davidson on the sale of Windyhill. Also in The Glasgow School of Art’s collection is a scale drawing in pencil with annotations, an example of Mackintosh’s own visual arts research data. Another example is Mackintosh’s Northern Italian sketchbook, available from the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) and also via the project website. The research was part-funded by The Glasgow School of Art and the creation of the database was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Left: Lake Como, Campo, Villa del Balbiano, studies of gates, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1891 © The Glasgow School of Art. Available from VADS: http://vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=92819

Right: Modern photo of gates at Lake Como, Campo, Villa del Balbiano © The Glasgow School of Art. Available from VADS: http://vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=92819&sos=0&pic3=its39p

Kaptur – six months into the project (1/3)

Posted: April 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: monthly reports, project posts | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

One third of the way through the project, and this is our update for the end of the sixth month:

WP1: Project Management

WP3: Technical Infrastructure

  • The Technical Analysis report has been through several iterations; the user requirement component has been sent to the partner institutions for final feedback; once this is received the requirements testing will take place leading to the choice of technical system for the pilot.

WP4: Modelling

  • The Project Officers reported on the trends in funding at their institutions (blog post)
  • Three of the four Project Officers attended the JISCMRD two-day workshop on institutional RDM policies (12-13th March, Leeds); this was extremely beneficial for Kaptur for several reasons:
    1. using the Chatham House Rule the JISCMRD projects could talk openly and plainly about the reality of creating and seeking approval for institutional RDM policies
    2. we had an opportunity to really understand the processes and workflows from more experienced projects (i.e. those who had received funding in the previous JISCMRD round 2009-11 or who already had institutional RDM policies)
    3. it was very interesting to hear how other JISCMRD projects were making use of the CARDIO and DAF tools from the Digital Curation Centre – we will be discussing this at our next project team meeting in April
    4. there was also the opportunity to ask questions of select representatives of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) which was very illuminating, particularly in terms of the EPSRC Expectations
    5. as most of the project team were able to attend we could discuss and share our own views over the course of the two days and come to a consensus of opinion – i.e. that we were aiming for a high-level aspirational policy based on University of Edinburgh’s policy
  • An RDM Discussion paper was drafted and was an agenda item at the UCA Research and Enterprise Committee meeting on 30th March; this Committee also have the role to approve an institutional RDM policy.
  • Representatives from 2 of the partner institutions attended the JISCMRD Data Management Planning (DMP) end of project event (23rd March) – this was useful in terms of discussion throughout the day, lessons learned from other projects, and also take-home resources which we may be able to implement – as well as a sneak peek at the new and improved version of the DCC’s DMP Online tool due to launch soon.

WP7: Dissemination

  • As mentioned above, 3/4 institutions attended the JISCMRD policies workshop and 2/4 attended the DMP end of project workshop (both March 2012).
  • Promotion of the Environmental Assessment report (blog post)
  • Beginning of an idea for more creative publicity material for Kaptur, to be followed up at our next project team meeting
  • The Project Manager gave a presentation on Kaptur to British Library staff as part of their Digital Conversations event (blog post)
  • The Project Director and Project Manager co-authored a written paper on Kaptur for the EVA London 2012 conference

4. Issues/challenges

As we are now a third of the way through the project it is a good point for reflection on both the work already accomplished as well as the work still to be done. Our focus continues to be on producing a pilot model for the visual arts sector and drawing on the strength of the collaboration across four partner institutions. Added to this is a growing sense of community across the JISCMRD programme (2011-13) which has benefited the Kaptur project team.

Kaptur – five months into the project

Posted: March 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: events, monthly reports, project posts | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

This is our update for the end of the fifth month:

WP1: Project Management

  • consortium agreement – waiting for the fourth institution to sign
  • steering group meeting held (presentations available on SlideShare), minutes circulated, blog post

WP2: Environmental Assessment

  • as reported previously, this phase is completed, although it is also feeding into the Technical Infrastructure phase
  • environmental assessment report – this has gone through a series of iterations and we have received very positive feedback; it will be available from early next week to download: UCA Research Online
  • the implementation plan was part of the original draft, and presented at the Steering Group meeting, but was then removed for clarity, and will now be made available as a series of blog posts this week

WP3: Technical Infrastructure

  • The Technical Manager has met and interviewed IT staff from three institutions.
  • In addition the four Project Officers have been involved in providing feedback on the technical requirements originating from the 16 interviews with visual arts researchers (from the Environmental Assessment phase).
  • Last week the first draft of the Technical Analysis report was sent to the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator.
  • The Technical Manager is installing DataBank and DataStage for requirements testing and comparison with other software.

WP4: Modelling

  • The Project Officers have been contacting and meeting a range of stakeholders from across their institutions, and also working with the Project Sponsors.
  • One institution has established a working group which will meet every 4-6 weeks; another institution has established a working group due to meet in early April.
  • The other two institutions are in the process of forming their working groups, including identifying relevant stakeholders.

WP7: Dissemination

4. Issues/challenges

The past month was about transition, so there were a variety of challenges!

The environmental assessment report was drafted last month, but following the Steering Group meeting it went through a series of iterations which took longer than expected, and it has also been verified by the 16 interviewees.

The relationships built up during WP2: Environmental Assessment are leading into WPs 3 and 4; however as we are in the process of getting the working groups together this is naturally throwing up a lot of questions and queries from all parties.

The Project Sponsors have been very engaged with Kaptur and they have been working closely with the Project Officers.

All Project Officers, and the Technical Manager, have now attended the excellent Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Roadshows. This has provided us with a solid base to move onwards with the aims of Kaptur, however the next challenge is to grow that same awareness amongst the stakeholders at each institution. The following DCC Research data policy briefing (PDF) document is being used as a starting point for discussion for WP4: Modelling. This was discovered through a DCC blog post by Sarah Jones (December 2011).