The project, funded by the European Commission under the Leonardo da Vinci programme, aims to enhance vocational training for digital curators across Europe by analyzing existing training opportunities, surveying training needs, and establishing an initial curriculum. It involves multiple founding members from various countries and addresses the skills required in digital preservation within cultural institutions. An ongoing survey seeks to map current training offerings and will be complemented by a survey assessing the specific training needs of cultural institutions.

1. Digital Curator Vocational Education Europe Kate Fernie MDR Partners This project has been funded with support from the European Commission'

2. Funded under the EC ’ s Leonardo da Vinci programme Aims to support and extend vocational training for digital curators in libraries, archives and museums Started on 1 st January 2011 for 30 months Founding members include HATTII, DCC, DPC and MDR (UK), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), Goettingen University Library and Nestor (Germany), Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale (Italy), Vilnius University Library (Lithuania), uToronto (Canada) and IMLS (USA). Some basic facts

3. Focusing on the cultural sector Identify and analyse existing training opportunities and methodologies Survey training needs Identify key skills and competences Establish an initial curriculum and a framework Disseminating the results Promoting the results for use by educators in training Main activities

4. Some context in Europe There are an estimated: 47 National libraries, 20,500 Public libraries, 10,000 University libraries, 29,000 Special libraries + School libraries 17,600 Museums 25 National archives plus Audiovisual archives NUMERIC report, 2009 http://www.cipfastats.net/default_view.asp?content_ref=9743 Cultural institutions are digitising and collecting digital materials Digital preservation is becoming a key issue

5. People 82000 staff many involved in digitisation

6. Training and Education Professional training for the care of traditional collections is well established Training in long term management of digital assets has been identified as a major issue for employers and staff Professional development is a lifetime requirement DPC training needs report, 2004 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/finalReport.pdf Zach Klein CC BY-NC 2.0

7. Current availability of vocational education and training? We launched a survey at the beginning of April 2011 and it is ongoing: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/477850/Survey-on-training-opportunities-in-digital-curation Aims to: Analyse the existing offer Map the curriculum landscape Build the profile

8. Initial results Responses from Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Estonia, Lithuania Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain, UK, Italy, Germany and USA Cross domain

9. Topics and learning objectives Getting started in digital preservation Deepening or updating knowledge Specific tools, techniques and standards, e.g. dealing with complex objects, different alphabets Workflows and enabling infrastructure, e.g. storage Practices, e.g. preservation planning IPR and copyright issues Legislation Access and reuse Licencing of learning materials Managing research data Fundraising and capacity building

10. Formats and trainers Mainly in-person large group workshops with a mixture of lectures and practical exercises Small group seminars and hands-on workshops Few online courses identified so far Delivered mainly by subject specialists Training professionals In-house and external trainers

11. Assessment Mostly not assessed Some multiple choice tests A few written examinations 50% offer an attendance certificate 39% offer attendees course credits 2-4 ECTS

12. Next steps Survey of training opportunities is ongoing: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/477850/Survey-on-training-opportunities-in-digital-curation Please respond if you haven ’ t already We are launching a companion survey of training needs amongst cultural institutions on 1 st July Idea is to analyse both the training on offer and the training needs to shape the curriculum framework Watch this space!

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