Short paper about the Co-Curate project presented at the OER15 conference, Cardiff 14-15th April 2015.

1. Co-Curate: working with schools and
communities to add value to Open collections
Simon Cotterill *
Martyn Hudson *
Kat Lloyd *
James Outterside *
John Peterson *
John Coburn +
Ulrike Thomas *
Lucy Tiplady *
Phil Robinson %
Phil Heslop *
* Newcastle University + Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums % George Stephenson High School
https://co-curate.ncl.ac.uk/

2. Overview
• Introduction / Background
• Demonstration
• Outcomes
• Discussion
Aims of this paper: provide an overview of use of Open collections in both formal
and informal educational contexts in Co-Curate and to share initial findings in
relation to stakeholders knowledge and perceptions of both using and
contributing Open licensed materials.

3. Introduction
• Cross-disciplinary initiative involving Newcastle
University and partner organisations
• Working with schools and community groups in the
North of England
• 18 month project
• Funded by AHRC - Digital Transformations in
Community Research Co-Production programme
• Builds on previous work
– Arts & Cultures: Northumbrian Exchanges
– Education
– LTSU: dynamic learning maps & OER projects

4. RIDLR & SupOERGlue (2 x JISC funded OER Rapid Innovation projects)
Return Paradata
LR
Node
DLM
Harvest OERs /Paradata
PublishOER (HEA/JISC UKOER Phase 3 project)
Technologies - background
Dynamic Learning Maps
https://learning-maps.ncl.ac.uk/

5. Resources in Co-Curate at 24/03/15
Harvesting of Selected Resources
Automated / regularly refreshed

6. Demonstration
https://co-curate.ncl.ac.uk/

7. Killingworth Flats Park 1970's Kenton Comprehensive School
George Stephenson
The Hoppings
Wallsend Four!
Roy's Bakery, Tynemouth Friends with
NUFC football player
Top 10 most frequently viewed media (Jan to March 13th, 2015)
George Stephenson
Settlingstones Mine
Pathé Video: Miners Dancing
756 media resource views (10.4% of all media views*)
*excludes viewing slideshows and thumbnails
Uploaded by community (4)
- Students at George Stephenson HS
From Regional Museum/Library
Flickr Collections (5)
YouTube video – hand added
by project team (1)
Key:
https://co-curate.ncl.ac.uk/

8. Usage Stats - first 11 weeks of 2015
92% of users are from the UK
~85% from the North East region
Period of analysis includes
large-scale pilot with GSHS
starting in January 2015

9. ~40% of comments related to a specific School assignment:
145 comments were made over a 6 month period
Some peer /
social conversation
32 new pages
331 tags to topics in Co-Curate
270 new resources added
150 images uploaded
137 Creative Commons licensed
13 All Rights Reserved
Community added content and resources

10. Discussion
• Openly licensed photographs and videos – are
these OERs?
– Many do have annotations explaining context and
history
– lack of intrinsic paedagogy
– independent learning activities and even unstructured
‘self-organised learning’ (SOLE).
– independent discovery and ‘serendipitous learning’
• Adding value – comments / tags etc.

11. • Co-Curate raised awareness and understanding of copyright
and Open Licenses
– Huge issue/interest to community groups
– Keen to use Open but cautious to contribute (at first)
– Large collections of physical photographs many ‘orphaned’ in
terms of copyright owner being unknown.
– Layers of copyright in ‘mashups’
• Risk management – takedown policy
• Ethical/legal issues working with children
• Selectivity
• Sustainability
Discussion #2

12. Summary
• The Co-Curate North East project aims to support co-
production and co-curation, including use of materials
from museum and archive collections mixed with
informal community input.
• The process can added value to OA collections; for
example the addition of personal narratives to
historical photographs adds rich contextual
information.
• The tagging and linking between related topics and
resources also adds value. The creation of ‘mashups’
can mix content from different collections and can
include community added content.
Further information: https://co-curate.ncl.ac.uk/

14. 90-9-1 Rule of Thumb
for Online Social Participation
The 90-9-1 Rule for Participation Inequality in
Social Media and Online Communities
Jakob Nielsen (2006)