WARCnet Aarhus Spring meeting 20-22 April 2021

1. Warcnet WG3 - Skills,
Knowledge, Tools and Training
Jason Webber
Web Archive Engagement Manager, British
Library
Bodliean Libraries, May 2021

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Original Idea
Aim: Identify and document skills and
knowledge required to achieve a range of
different research goals within web archiving.
Where possible find and make available
workable solutions to reduce the barriers to
entry for research.

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Research Team
● Jason Webber: (jason.webber@bl.uk) Web Archiving Engagement Manager, British Library
(https://www.bl.uk/people/experts/jason-webber)
● Sharon Healy: (sharon.healy@mu.ie) PhD Candidate & GOIPG IRC Scholar in Digital Humanities,
Maynooth University (ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3493-0938)
● Dr Olga Holownia: (olga.holownia@bl.uk) Programme and Communications Officer, British Library
/ International Internet Preservation Consortium
● Michael Kurzmeier: (michael.kurzmeier@mu.ie ) PhD Candidate & GOIPG IRC Scholar in Digital
Humanities, Maynooth University (ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4925-5197)
● Dr Jessica Ogden: (jessica.ogden@bristol.ac.uk) ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Bristol
(ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4696-7340)
● Katharina Schmid: (katharina.schmid@bsb-muenchen.de) IT developer, Munich DigitiZation
Center, Bavarian State Library.
● Derren Wilson (d.j.wilson@mmu.ac.uk) Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan iSchool,
Manchester Metropolitan University

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Questions
What skills, knowledge, tools and training led to a
‘successful’ research experience?
● What did researchers know before starting?
● What did they learn along the way?
● What advice would they give to new researchers
of web archiving?

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More questions
● What can a researcher achieve in web archiving with given
knowledge and skills (that they already have)?
● If a researcher wants to achieve certain goals in web archiving what
skills and/or knowledge will they need and how can they acquire it?
● What type of tools do researchers use for collecting, analysing and
managing data
● What type of citation practices are used by researchers for citing
archived web content, and data derived from web archives?

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Phases
1.Pilot Skills workshop
2.Researcher survey
3.Researcher interviews

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Timetable
1. Pilot skills workshop - Warcnet conference - Apr
2021
2. Researcher Survey - Apr-May 2021
3. Workshop - EWA conference - Aug 2021
4. Presentation (and workshop?) - Warcnet
conference - Nov 2021

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Outputs
● Develop a skills matrix
● Develop a list of resources on the availability of resources to train or
inform researchers of how to acquire the skills identified in the matrix
● Deliver a WARCnet paper on the results of the survey
● Deliver a WARCnet paper on the creation of ‘personas’ and the results of
a ‘personas’ workshop
● Develop a dataset of interviews as examples of use cases for conducting
research with web archives; archive the interviews in a trusted repository,
and make it a reusable dataset.
● Deliver a paper on Web Archive Project RDM lifecycles, using WARSA
Phase 1/ 2 as a case-study (this is relevant to Sharon Healy’s PhD
research)

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Survey