1. Common Solutions Group, January, 2003
The Campus Digital Landscape Through the Digital Lifecycle Comments from Yale University
The Digital Landscape is Critical to the Institution
Philip Long, CIO
The Digital Lifecycle and Faculty Perspectives
Ann Green, Director, Social Science Research Services
Library support of Using Digital Images for Teaching
Danuta Nitecki, Associate University Librarian
Common Solutions Group, January, 2003

2. The Digital Landscape is Emerging
Our campuses are home to a large and growing number of digital landscape activities
For example, at Yale:
A majority of courses have Web based materials
Dozens of substantial digital teaching and research projects are underway
A half dozen internally and externally funded digital archiving investigations are underway
New activities are initiated continuously, independently as well as in conjunction with the Library and IT units

3. The Digital Landscape Requires a Campus Infrastructure
Core teaching and research information is captured, analyzed, presented, published and archived in digital forms
Such activities are expensive
Down-stream results depend upon upstream decisions as interoperability depends on standards, interfaces and conversions
The digital landscape is still being invented nationwide
This is a key priority for ITS and the Library at Yale

4. How should a Campus manage its Institutional Digital Landscape?
How can we balance faculty-driven projects with institutional projects?
To meet immediate needs, faculty-driven projects are typically light weight and fast moving
But can easily duplicate or dissipate investment
To meet lasting needs, collection-driven projects typically require up front investment and ongoing curatorial care
Thus costing more but potentially providing lasting value
What standards and practices should we adopt in the face of continuing technical change to:
Capture audio, image and video formats and more
Manipulate, analyze, publish
Discover and search
Archive

5. We Start by Examining the Life Cycle of Digital Materials
Full life cycle view encompasses all phases of digital materials from “cradle to archive.”
Some materials will span the full life cycle, others will be short lived.
Life spans:
One-offs: create, use, discard, e.g., instructional
Shared use: create, publish, archive for a time, discard, e.g., grant sponsored data
Supported Collection: create, publish, archive, preserve indefinitely at some ongoing cost
Different types of digital projects have different life spans, Ann will talk more about this

6. The Design of the Digital Landscape is Informed by a Digital Life Cycle view
The Digital Landscape is made up of a continuum of support across projects and throughout the life cycle of digital resources.
Common infrastructure and best practices can and should support the entire lifecycle of the range of projects: from one-off as well as collections oriented projects.

7. What Digital Landscape Infrastructure will Best Advance Institutional Goals?
Today’s discussion:
The Digital Life-cycle from the perspective of faculty projects
Views from both the Yale ITS/AM&T and Library perspectives
Including profiles of several campus projects

8. What is covered by the life cycle view?
Life span of projects in the digital landscape (e.g. research projects, instructional initiatives)
Life cycle of digital objects, the output of projects (e.g. images, databases, maps)
Life cycle of digital resources such as presentations of the digital objects (e.g. custom web sites, classroom applications, media productions)

9. What are the phases of the digital life cycle?
Produce: digitize images, collect surveys, compile databases, produce videos, etc.
Publish: web publishing, (e)-journal article, classroom presentations, multi-media production, etc.
Repurpose: secondary analysis, replicate, harvest, republish, reproduce
Preserve: migrate, emulate, archive

10. Principles of life cycle management: managing resources at each stage of the life cycle
Cradle to archive view of management
Digital assets require specific and varying applications, support, architecture, and resources at various phases in their life cycle.
Understanding complexities of the life cycle and costs associated with each phase will inform the digital landscape design.
Develop a continuum of support throughout the life cycle to increase participation, leverage investments, and lower costs.

11. Why the faculty perspective?
Faculty-driven digital initiatives are made up of a wide variety of resources and support requirements.
Faculty-driven projects provide an informative needs-based environment for developing new approaches to the digital landscape.

12. Digital resources from faculty-driven projects
Long life span (Collection):
Statistical datasets generated from a long term survey of social attitudes and behavior
Large collection of images relating to the history of women in Ancient Rome
Medium term life span:
Collection of images of US cities for a portfolio on urban sociology used in classroom teaching
Very large datasets for neuroimaging analysis course
Single use:
Classroom lecture
Interim research application

13. Not all digital resources are bound for the preservation phase
Digital resources will differ in the appropriate length of their life cycle; support for all stages may not be needed
Some resources that have long term value yet become ‘digital orphans.’
Look to develop appropriate solutions to:
leverage utility of digital assets
access/reuse assets & productions over time

14. Example of long term collection requirements: Yale G-Econ Project
Produce:
Statistical database of global GDP with extensive metadata
Geographic coding and geo-referencing
Ability for research team to entering data and metadata remotely
Publish and repurpose:
Large scale centralized, web accessible data storage
Sophisticated Web site w/ statistical and GIS applications
Scholarly publications
Archive:
Manage and provide access over long term
Required by NSF

15. Support from Social Science Research Services to G-Econ project
Production phase:
Custom data entry front end for distributed staff: enter data values, formulas, and descriptive metadata
Database design for backend master database for Web distribution and analysis
Web interface design and implementation
Publication and repurposing phases:
GIS web service for interactive GIS visualization
Publication and presentation output (high quality graphics)
Archival concerns:
Ongoing maintenance and development
Archival responsibility for the data AND the interface functionality

16. Life cycle phase Support requirements Life span PRODUCTION
Production tools
Standards: format and metadata
Training
Development space, storage
Short, mid, and long term lifespan
PUBLICATION
Standards Web support
Interoperability Harvesting/searching tools
e-publishing solutions
Repositories, Storage
REPURPOSING
Standards
Web support
Interoperability, discovery
Harvesting/searching tools
Integration tools storage
Persistence (naming standards)
Access controls  
mid and long term lifespan
PRESERVATION
Digital archive system w/ standards, storage; discovery, migration and preservation processes; persistent identification; rights management and security
Long term lifespan

17. Common requirements throughout the life cycle phases
Standards (format, metadata, and administrative)
Storage
Web support
Interoperability
Persistence

18. Digital projects benefit from early partnerships
Efforts in the production stages will reap long term benefits in the publishing, reuse, and archiving stages
Infuse best practices into faculty projects:
the choices of format and metadata standards at the creation of digital resources can significantly increase both short- and long-term benefits
Provide tools and processes that make best practices attractive and cost effective at the design and production phases of the life cycle.

19. Challenges of the life cycle view
What is the cost of each life-cycle stage, both initial and ongoing?
What digital assets should we collect and what are created for a limited time or purpose?
Who decides what to preserve?
Where do we most effectively provide support and partnerships?
Which digital assets should be institutionally managed?
Principles might include reuse beyond the author, e.g., not single use instruction

20. American Digital Imaging Project
A Library’s view of faculty-driven digital projects in teaching with images: ELI
Yale University Library’s Electronic Library Initiatives [ELI]:
A focused effort to facilitate and study the use of digital images and other materials in teaching, learning, and scholarship.
American Digital Imaging Project

21. A Library’s Evolved Focus
Building collections to simplifying access
Partnering with libraries and museum collectors to technologists and vendors
Organizing & preserving information to teaching & learning knowledge
Librarians as resource specialists to client-based knowledge managers
Counting collection size to assessing impact of resources as gauge of quality service

22. ELI Infrastructure Steering Committee & 6 Working Groups:
Product Design
Expand Digital Collections
Software Integration
Copyright & Intellectual Rights Guidance
Instruction Services
Assessment

23. Evolved sense of digital image “life-cycle”
Faculty conceive digital assets
Library/ITS deliver birth or serve as midwives
Library give foster care or adopt when asset outgrows faculty home
Library disciplines asset with standard education and offers parenting training
With educators study life’s impact
Haven’t successfully designed estate planning

24. Library & ITS Commonalities
Clients
Concerns
Infrastructure
Life-cycle concept of digital assets & their availability
Faculty, students & researchers--discipline based
Meeting expectations within resource limits
Standards, systems, technical specialists
“Cradle to archive”

25. Can we improve the quality of digital life?
With collaborative services & procedures:
to guide faculty to expert assistance
to foster cross-campus team service support
to identify and adapt standards to facilitate migration to shared collections
to promote respect of intellectual property rights
to implement effective “best practices”

26. Life-cycle concept applied to ELI faculty-driven projects
ITS-AMT
Identification
Production
Publication
Repurposing
Preservation
Retrieval/identify
Library ELI service cycle
Identification: images to meet pedagogical objectives
Production: digital images & metadata
Publication: course material
Assess Learning Impact

27. Service Support Toolkits
Instruction
Copyright/Intellectual Rights Guidance
Integration applications
Assessment Techniques

28. Current observations about goals for supporting faculty-driven projects in the digital landscape: ITS-AM&T
Provide spheres of support and common tools throughout the flow of digital collection, production, access, and preservation processes
Build a consistent and efficient infrastructure for digital assets
Leverage innovation; integrate innovation into production and infrastructure
Promote an architecture that supports collaboration, partnerships and effective long term management
Mine and preserve Yale resources

29. Additional observations about goals for supporting faculty-driven projects in the digital landscape: Library
Balance client desires for immediate use of digital assets & products with institutional desire for long term availability
Don’t loose perspective of impact of project
Facilitate knowledge management partnerships to assess teaching, infrastructure support, and behavior
Foster respect of intellectual property rights

30. Discussion: Challenges in the digital landscape
What kind of support and infrastructure are necessary at the various phases of the life cycle? How much can be centralized, how much is discipline specific, how much can be ubiquitous?
How do faculty navigate among support units as they move through the phases, e.g., from production to publishing to archiving?
What are the entry costs for each collection level?
How do we develop and promote common standards, best practices, tools, architecture, and staff expertise across domains?
Can collections from disparate domains be managed w/in common digital repositories?