Resource enhancement: Reaching your target audience The First World War Poetry Digital Archive
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Transcript of Resource enhancement: Reaching your target audience The First World War Poetry Digital Archive
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
Resource enhancement: Reaching your target audience
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive
Kate Lindsay, Project ManagerOxford University
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
Overview
• Background
• The Goals of the First World War Poetry Digital Archive
• The Collections
• User Engagement - from start to finish
• Site Demo
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
Background
• 1996: JISC funded the Virtual Seminars Project
• Drew together primary materials on Wilfred Owen
scattered across a range of archives and an array of
contextual resources (WOMDA)
• Web based tutorials to advance the possibilities of
traditional teaching
• One of the first multimedia collections designed
specifically as a teaching resource -more than 1 million
hits.
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
Goals of the First World War Poetry Digital Archive
1. To make primary source material available to researchers
and students which would otherwise be difficult to access
2. To place the material in context thus widening the site’s
appeal to include history, military history, women studies,
and media studies
3. To add value by providing tools for research and education
4. Proof of concept: The Great War Archive
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
The Archive Collections• c. 4000 digital images of primary source material (manuscripts, letters,
service records) from Edward Thomas, Robert Graves, Isaac Rosenberg,
Vera Brittain and Roland Leighton on launch.
• Online corpora of the full-texts of
the poems.
• c. 500 Multimedia objects (photographs,
audio and video) from the IWM.
• Publications of War (recruitment
posters, trench papers etc.)
• c. 7000 items submitted by the general
public of items originating from the
Great War.
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
User EngagementWhat we needed to know
• Who would be the archive’s key users?
• What are the requirements of a web archive for these user groups?
• How are the users likely to find out about the archive?
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
User EngagementDefining User Groups
Researchers
HE Lecturers
Teachers
The General PublicUG Students
(Who have stuff from WW1!!!)
Military Historians
School Students
Parents
Family Historians
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
User EngagementBuilding up dissemination networks
• Enlisted ‘Friends of the Project’ who would disseminate our work
• To raise public awareness produced podcasts with key experts and
public figures on the First World War and released these into itunes.
• Discussion groups, Facebook, mailing lists set up early on
• Spam wikipedia!
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
User EngagementThe Steering Group
• Formed a steering group made up of researchers, lecturers and
teachers, and technical experts.
• We gained an in depth knowledge of current research processes for
the subject area.
• Act as brokers and champions for the target user groups
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
User EngagementTeaching WW1 Literature Workshop
• Run in November 2007, before development had commenced on
the web interface or the production of educational resources.
• Focus was on literature not technology
• Collected scenarios of how First World War Literature is currently
taught and from this emerged the foundations for the design of the
archive and the types of resources that were to be developed.
• A user group we could maintain contact with
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
User EngagementUser Testing
• Two extensive phases of user testing conducted throughout the
development period
• Phase 1: Focused on researchers and looked at the more advanced
search and viewing functionalities
• Implications for metadata
• Implications for system development
• Phase 2: Focused on teachers and students and looked at the
browsing functionality and educational materials
• Implications for web site design and structure
• Implications for content, especially educational resources
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
User EngagementUser Testing: Methodology
• Scenario-based online survey (in surveymonkey.com) guiding
participants through a series of tasks in the archive.
• Participants went through the survey with two researchers and
encouraged to ‘talk-aloud’
• Additional notes taken by the researcher
• Screen capture using Adobe Captivate
• All data collected and the resulting actions documented in a public
wiki
http://wiki.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg-public/WW1projectUserFeedback
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
Reaching the target audiencesThe Great War Archive
• Specific targets: military enthusiasts and collectors, genealogists, the elderly
• Staged marketing campaign
• Propaganda sent to all city and county
libraries
• Newspaper and radio coverage
• Camps set up at strategic locations
through voluntary enlistment - each
camp responsible for local operations.
Troops sent to camps to run recruitment
events.
• Online targeting - Flickr, ebay, forums
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
User EngagementOutcomes and Lessons
• Users played a valuable part in the design of the archive’s interface.
• We didn’t know enough about how the subject is taught in schools
and at university.
• Staff need knowledge of the subject area
• Many users do not know how a technology can benefit them until
they can see its possibilities firsthand (e.g. Web 2.0).
• A post-dissemination plan was needed
• They wanted more poets!
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
Continuing User EngagementEnriching the First World War Poetry Digital Archive
• Two workshops with teachers and lecturers in 2009
• Alternative visualisations of metadata in the archive via the use of
Web 2.0 technologies• Google maps
• Timelines
• VUE
• Flickr
• ‘Ask an expert’ facility
• Make the Great War Archive Submission Interface and the Path
Creation Tool available as open source.
• Digitise Sassoon
Further Information
• Kate Lindsay, Project Manager
• http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit
• http://wiki.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg-public/WW1projectUserFeedback