Museums and the Web 2009 Conference
A paper on "Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking: A Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Services" was presented at the Museums and the Web 2009 conference. Further details are given below.
- Title
- Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking: A Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Services
- Author
- Brian Kelly
- Type
- Paper - held in the "Redesign Frameworks" session
- Date And Time
- Saturday 18th April 2008 in the session running from 14.00-15.00
- Summary
- See details on conference Web site.
- Abstract
The benefits of use of Web 2.0 within a museum context are now being widely appreciated, with many papers at recent Museums and the Web conferences having highlighted a variety of benefits which use of services such as Flickr and YouTube and technologies such as blogs and wikis can provide.
But what of the associated risks? What of the concerns that:
- The services may not be sustainable
- Institutional data may be locked into remote services
- Users may lose interest in the services
- Information providers may become demotivated
- The services may infringe accessibility guidelines and associated legislation
- Inappropriate user-generated content may be published on the service
- Data created or stored on the services may not be preserved
- Use of the services may not be approved by senior managers.
- Services which are reliant on individual subscriptions may not be accessible if the individuals leave
In a paper on "Web 2.0: Web 2.0: How to Stop Thinking and Start Doing: Addressing Organisational Barriers" presented at MW 2007 conference the authors encouraged museums to take a leap of faith and beginning experimentation with use of Web 2.0. But now that organisations have a clearer idea of the benefits which Web 2.0 can provide it is now appropriate to "stop doing and start thinking".
This paper describes a framework which is being developed to support cultural heritage organisations in the UK in their use of Web 2.0 services. The framework included the following components:
- A risk assessment and risk management framework.
- Devolved approach to risk assessment.
- Assessing the risks of doing nothing, continuing with existing approaches, deploying over-centralised approaches, etc.
- Reconceptualising Web accessibility.
- A framework for Web preservation.
- Staff training and staff development.
- Encouraging openness of access to training resources, case studies, risk assessment and risk management strategies, success stories and examples of failures, etc.
- New media literacy strategies, aimed at all members of an organisation and related bodies including senior managers, policy makers and funders.
- A support framework for the protection for young people.
The talk will describe how this framework is being deployed by UKOLN in its support activities for the cultural heritage sector within the UK.
- Materials
- About - [MS PowerPoint] - [HTML]
Biographical Details
Brian Kelly is UK Web Focus, a post funded by the
JISC and the
MLA which advises
the UK's higher and further education communities and museums, libraries and archives
sector on standards, emerging technologies and best practices for use of the Web.
Brian works at UKOLN, a national centre of expertise in digital information management,
which is based at the University of Bath.
Brian is an experienced Web developer, having helped set up his first Web site in January 1993 whilst working in the Computing Service at the University of Leeds. In 1995 Brian was the senior trainer for the Netskills training organisation. He moved to his current job in 1996.
Brian's current interests include making use of standards and supporting accessibility from a user-focussed position, and exploring the potential of Web 2.0. His recent publications include "Contextual Web Accessibility - Maximizing the Benefit of Accessibility Guidelines", "A Contextual Framework For Standards", "Personalization and Accessibility: Integration of Library and Web Approaches" and "Holistic Approaches to E-Learning Accessibility".
