Recap of Workshop 1: Cultural Heritage Sparks

The first DCHRN workshop took place last Friday, 29 January, and feedback so far indicates it was a great success. About 30 people attended from across the University and from six cultural heritage organisations, and in the course of the afternoon we heard 13 brief ‘lightning talks’ covering topics from MOOCs to the semantic web to mapping literary history to the sustainability of digital collections.

You might also like to check out Lorna Campbell’s summary of the afternoon on her blog.

Rebecca Sinker, Curator: Digital Learning at Tate, gave a stimulating talk that closed with a series of provocative topics and open questions for the network to consider. She identified work to be done on issues including the ethics and value of visitor generated content; cultural value in digitised and born-digital cultural content; critical frameworks for digitisation and access; open (cultural) data; redundancy in technology formats and platforms, and new or hybrid research forms and outputs.

And there was time for informal discussion as well as an in-depth conversation about a series of research topics and questions identified by network members:

TOPIC 1 – PARTICIPATION & INTERPRETATION

How can digital media increase participation, enhance engagement and encourage collaboration between academic and cultural institutions and their diverse audiences?

How does meaning reside in digital cultural artefacts? How are voice(s) and creative participation encouraged, represented and interpreted?

TOPIC 2 – WEB & CURATION

Why are so few cultural heritage bodies really making use of semantic web technologies? Is it that they don’t believe it’s the way forward, or are there more tractable barriers?

Given the increasing amounts of cultural heritage data available, how might we develop forms and modes of curation and navigation which enable and support meaningful interactions with that data?

TOPIC 3 – DCHRN

One of the biggest challenges to networks like these is sustaining the initial contact and ideas through to achieving tangible results. How can we embed inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional relationships and practices in ways that will outlast any individual involvement in the network?

How might we address complex contemporary issues from dynamic and practical perspective, involving different fields of study?

How can the network infrastructure support digital research and cultural heritage?

TOPIC 4 – OPENNESS & PRESERVATION

How can we best preserve the rapidly expanding amount of cultural heritage data, in a world where we can’t all be librarians/information professionals?

As more cultural heritage digital collections become open, what new research opportunities emerge?

How can digital cultural heritage collections be released under open license and used more widely for teaching and learning?

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You can revisit the afternoon in real-time by viewing the workshop’s Twitter feed:

The first workshop of the Digital Cultural Heritage Reserach Network took place on 29 January 2016, at the School of Education, University of Edinburgh.

dchrn.de.ed.ac.uk

Great first workshop on Cultural Heritage Sparks as part of Digital Cultural Heritage Research Network https://t.co/wgFMiJAnF3 @jar @UoE_IAD

— Festival of Creative Learning (@UoE_FCL) January 26, 2016

http://twitter.com/sbayne/status/693011336670920704

http://twitter.com/oldnorthroad/status/693028286448934912

http://twitter.com/jar/status/693045377285619712

Today at "Cultural Heritage Sparks# the opening workshop of the Digital Cultural Research Network at the University of Edinburgh #dchrn

— Maribel Hidalgo Urbaneja (@MaribelHU) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/Giraf87/status/693059115342524416

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693064084225396737

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A superb afternoon in store hearing and speaking about Digital Inclusivity in Cultural Heritage. #dchrn #axschat #inclusivity

— WelcoMe Community (@WelcoMe_Users) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693065632208723969

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Glynn Davis talking abouy artworks pictures copyright issues in art history Moocs and museums openness #dchrn

— Maribel Hidalgo Urbaneja (@MaribelHU) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693067789775605761

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Jen Ross on the Artcasting project: an app which engages audience but also retrieves data for evaluation #dchrn pic.twitter.com/9Tbqo9T83s

— Maribel Hidalgo Urbaneja (@MaribelHU) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693069968884260864

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Wish I was at both #IHRWIN16 and #dchrn today – thanks for all the tweets! Hopefully presentations will be online…

— Victoria Stobo (@vstobo) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693083500631736320

http://twitter.com/jar/status/693085419890741256

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Rebecca Sinker talks about her former research approach on digital learning which connects to digital artistic practice #dchrn

— Maribel Hidalgo Urbaneja (@MaribelHU) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/jar/status/693086336505495552

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693086353794416640

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Rebecca Sinker mentions Tate's "Cultural value and the Digital" study #dchrn

— Maribel Hidalgo Urbaneja (@MaribelHU) January 29, 2016

Rebecca Sinker redlining the importance of Practice, Theory and Policy discussions in the public sector #dchrn

— chrisspeed (@chrisspeed) January 29, 2016

Cultural Value and the Digital by Rebecca Sinker. Concise and smart summary of… #dchrn pic.twitter.com/8xpeaxquOH

— chrisspeed (@chrisspeed) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693088036033335296

http://twitter.com/sbayne/status/693088565555757056

http://twitter.com/jar/status/693088606634770432

Cultural Value and the Digital: Practice, Policy and Theory final report (PDF at bottom of page) https://t.co/RPPkmGPfC5 #dchrn

— chrisspeed (@chrisspeed) January 29, 2016

R. Sinker: museums haven't look at collaboratory & institutional critical artistic contemporary practice to develop learning programs #dchrn

— Maribel Hidalgo Urbaneja (@MaribelHU) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693089111683551232

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The entanglements or interdependencies involved in booking an airline ticket and departing the airport #dchrn pic.twitter.com/aj8qPJzxWb

— chrisspeed (@chrisspeed) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693092407584387072

Rebecca Sinker on the Tate Archive & access project: Users get the same interface to search the museum collection & the archive #dchrn

— Maribel Hidalgo Urbaneja (@MaribelHU) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693092822505910272

The resource implications for a research project (including 590 meetings) #dchrn pic.twitter.com/WBIHqYEsWu

— chrisspeed (@chrisspeed) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693093831395385345

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693093831395385345

Rebecca Sinker final remarks #dchrn pic.twitter.com/94tNHp5c5w

— Maribel Hidalgo Urbaneja (@MaribelHU) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693094809012170753

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Thinking about open educational resources at #dchrn with Lorna Campbell pic.twitter.com/WeL7Sddx51

— Claire Sowton (@_ClaireSowton) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell/status/693105768577536000

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Great first Digital Cultural Heritage Research Network. Looking forward to the next on 22nd March. #DCHRN

— Claire Sowton (@_ClaireSowton) January 29, 2016

http://twitter.com/alexgchale/status/693181733877972993

http://twitter.com/jar/status/694087143409500160

The next workshop is taking place on Tuesday 22 March, at the National Museums of Scotland. Feel free to get in touch if you’d like to join us and haven’t already registered!