BCC Resources Roundup: Policy & Workflow Development and Training
Jessica Farrell
Dear BCC Members and BitCurator users,
In the past couple months over BCC virtual gatherings, mulling over what has changed and how we plan around COVID-19, one refrain continually pops up: digital collections are getting increased attention as both employees and users of cultural heritage organizations shift to performing their work and their research fully online. Suddenly the infrastructure that allows for digital access and engagement, often rendered invisible, is in the spotlight.
As many institutions increase activity in the areas of digital scholarship, curation, and web archiving in response to COVID-19, now is also a great time to think about the born-digital archival workflows that need to be in place to maintain and provide access to those collections over time.
Hannah Wang (Project Manager for the BitCuratorEdu project) along with the BCC Executive Council pulled together this list of resources that may help you with those long-dreamed-about born-digital workflow and program management projects you might be starting or picking back up. Whether you’re a manager recognizing the complex dependencies of digital preservation workflows and needs or a practitioner looking for advice on where to start, we hope that you find something useful here!
Policy development
Are you crafting policy statements to justify the use of digital curation workflows in your institution?
Why Digital Forensics provides information and talking points to support policy development around digital curation.
The Digital Dossiers produced by the OSSArcFlow project provide examples of how to contextualize the digital curation work of your institution and set goals for that work.
Workflow development
Are you creating or revising your born-digital archiving workflows?
The Born Digital Archiving Workflows produced by the OSSArcFlow project provide examples of workflows that integrate multiple open-source tools in different ways.
The BCC Workflows are born-digital archiving workflows created by BCC members, which provide examples of workflows that use BitCurator and other open-source tools. While some of these workflows are visible to BCC members only, most are publicly available.
Are you thinking about using BitCurator or evaluating it for your institution?
The BCC Getting Started guide has all the information you need to get your feet wet with BitCurator.
Training
Are you seeking BitCurator training or providing remote training to your staff?
The BCC wiki is a one-stop-shop for BitCurator documentation. Whether you are trying to install the BitCurator environment, use specific tools, get started with scripting tasks, or looking for datasets to use for practice or training, the BCC wiki has resources to assist you.
The BCC videos are screencasts that guide you through the BitCurator environment. There are videos geared at both beginning users and users that are looking to implement more advanced tools and workflows.
Are you thinking about building a training program for digital curation, either within your institution or as a collaborative effort?
The Sustaining Digital Curation and Preservation Training in the US report provides some guidelines for building a training program, by reporting on sustainability factors in digital curation training.
BitCurator Development
Are you a developer, archivist, or open-source software enthusiast looking to get involved in BitCurator development?
The BitCurator project page contains information on contributing to the open-source BitCurator Environment, BitCurator Access Webtools, BitCurator Access Redaction tools, and BitCurator NLP Tools.
If you are a BCC member, you can suggest improvements to the BitCurator Environment by filing an issue. Software development experience not required!