Towards a National Collection - Digital Collection Training Materials for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums

Tender description

The objective of this consultancy is to design a series of training materials that address core challenges in relation to the hosting of digital collections for small, medium-sized and community-based cultural organisations. This includes addressing digital capacity and capability challenges that hinder the ability to become self-sufficient in the generation and management of digital collections, as well as carrying out state-of-the-art research related to the Digital Humanities and Heritage Science. The development of the training materials should build on current infrastructure initiatives (e.g. TaNC, DiSScO, RICHeS) and recommendations, such as the implementation of open standards and technologies that can help with the sustainability and research of digital collections. This consultancy should engage with digitisation processes of tangible and intangible heritage through [1] the identification of accessible and innovative digitisation tools and methods (e.g. RTI, 3D scanning, visual and audio recording), and [2] the use of ingest tools and their intersection with Content Management Systems (e.g. Arches, Omeka S) and potentially triplestore repositories. Consultants should identify and highlight complementary current digitisation initiatives such as the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s ‘digitisation design canvas’, and guides of ‘low-cost and open digital tools for digitisation’, whilst prioritising digitisation and digitalisation for research of the type funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This consultancy should [3] explore the potential standardisation of concepts through Linked Data and controlled vocabularies to collect and describe digital collections through Content Management Systems (CMS). The consultancy is expected to [4] generate examples of scientific examination on the digitised and digitalised collections in a way that further connects to the pre-designed pipelines to provide examples of sustainability of digitally born data from these exercises. The training materials should make use of open standard pipelines. As some infrastructure elements, such as server hosting, may require economic investment, the consultant should also explore and recommend free hosting alternatives for such systems and pipelines. The training materials should demonstrate how the different elements can be integrated together as a single workflow or pipeline. The consultant should [5] carry out a scoping exploration of potential delivery mechanisms for the training materials, through synchronous and asynchronous learning methods through digital learning platforms (e.g. VLEs) and repositories (e.g. Git). The scope of these delivery mechanisms should also include the identification of collaborative partnerships with potential training partners that could deliver the content through the platforms proposed. The consultant is required to test the draft training materials with the small and medium-sized cultural organisations and evaluate their performance and applicability in order to ensure that the final training materials are helpful and practical for the intended audience. The consultant is required to design and execute a plan for the delivery of the training materials whilst making use of the previously scoped delivery and its platforms in a way that facilitates access and re-usability. The Towards a National Collection Program Director will be the main point of contact for the supplier, and the supplier must comply with all reasonable instructions and directions of the Program Director to ensure compliance with our requirements.