Digitizing Culture Challenges, Opportunities and Lessons Learned Leslie Chan University of Toronto at Scarborough Multicultural Canada Conference, May 31-June 2, 2006, Vancouver, British Columbia

For historians, one of the great promises of digital technology is its potential to democratize history—to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences, and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past (2006). Roy Rosenzweig, Founder and Director of the Center on History & New Media (CHNM), George Mason University

Reconstituting Cultures in Cyberspace Connecting the diasporas

Digitization Modes of Production  The Cathedral and the Bazaar Epublishing - what is it? Access - importance Teaching and leaning in digital space Recommendations

Video The Global Gathering Place Inspector Relic

What we didn’t know If we build it, they will come Design for the online environment Persuasive hypertext Metadata, standards, long-term preservation Institutional buy-in Academic legitimacy Sustainability

Digitization From analog to binary Is selective - sampling Remediation - representation of one medium in another (Bolter and Grusin, 1999) Requires new interpretive frameworks Challenges authenticity and authority

Online and invisible How to overlay information onto the physical world and into the past? Lessons from Google Earth Google Earth

Modes of production Cathedral or the the Bazaar? Collaborative commons-based production Institutional barriers Disciplinary boundaries Academic conventions

Access Increasing commodification of knowledge Ensuring access to public Internet materials for educational uses? “We want the new Copyright Bill to reflect the reality of Internet usage today and not support outdated and unsustainable business models that limit access to publicly available Internet materials.” "We believe that Canadian students and educators have a right to use publicly available materials on the Internet without a copyright collective charging a licensing fee for access.” May 30, 2006, Education Minister Jamie Muir, Nova Scotia Copyright Consortium Chair, Council of Ministers of Education

Learning Margaret Mead, Culture and Commitment (1970)  Cultural Styles:  Postfigurative  Cofigurative  Prefigurative Concepts “bound to the past, could provide no models for the future”

Recommendations Use the Web as a social space Promote participatory design Use open source and open standards Ensure broad and open access Better understanding of learners’ needs Work collaboratively and across disciplines Provide adequate education and training for knowledge media design