This presentation summarizes a recent survey of the literature covering digital curation and methods for teaching digital literacy skills.

1. Tim Boileau, PhD
Digital Curation
and Media Literacy Skills
in the 21st Century
Scholarship and Research
Series - April 9, 2014

2. Digital Curation
Set of interdisciplinary activities for collection,
preservation, maintenance, and archiving of
digital information and research data, in order to
add value to the information and data throughout
its lifecycle.
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Boileau, 2014

4. Digital Curation - Historical Perspective
Libraries
Museums
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5. Digital Curation - Tools
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6. Digital Curation - Domains
❖ Individuals!
❖ Institutions!
❖ Society
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7. Digital Curation - Individuals
❖ Everyone is a curator!
❖ Despite technology, humans face innate cognitive
limitations!
❖ Required skills for digital curation include:
Analysis Networking
Assessement Knowledge Construction
Critical Thinking Conceptualization
Distributed Cognition Trans-Media Navigation
Investigation Collective Intelligence
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8. Digital Curation - Institutions
❖ Concept of curation is not new: e.g., institutional
memory, archives, knowledge management!
❖ What is new: stakeholders expect access to knowledge
repositories to contribute to and access archived
resources
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9. Institutional Curation - DCC
Digital Curation Centre (DCC) was established in the UK in 2004, with a
focus on the preservation and curation of data collected from research
conducted on a global basis. The primary aims of the DCC are:!
❖ to promote an understanding of the need for digital curation among
communities of scientists and scholars; !
❖ to provide services to facilitate digital curation; !
❖ to share knowledge of digital curation among the many disciplines
for which it is essential; !
❖ to develop technology in support of digital curation; and, !
❖ to conduct long-term research into all aspects of digital curation.
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10. DCC Curation Processes
1. Conceptualize: conceive and plan the creation of digital objects, including data capture methods and storage
options.!
2. Create: produce digital objects and assign administrative, descriptive, structural and technical archival metadata.!
3. Appraise and select: evaluate digital objects and select those requiring long-term curation and preservation.
Adhere to documented guidance, policies and legal requirements.!
4. Ingest: transfer digital objects to an archive, trusted digital repository, data centre or similar, again adhering to
documented guidance, policies and legal requirements.!
5. Preservation action: undertake actions to ensure the long-term preservation and retention of the authoritative
nature of digital objects. !
6. Store: keep the data in a secure manner as outlined by relevant standards. !
7. Access and use: ensure that designated users can easily access digital objects on a day-to-day basis. Some digital
objects may be publicly available, whilst others may be password protected. !
8. Transform: create new digital objects from the original, for example, by migration into a different form.!
9. Dispose: rid systems of digital objects not selected for long-term curation and preservation. Documented
guidance, policies and legal requirements may require the secure destruction of these objects.
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12. Digital Curation - Society
Three Global Trends in Digital Curation (end of 2013):!
❖ The rise of individual access enabled by smartphones
and tablets,!
❖ The end of content scarcity as digital distribution has
become ubiquitous, and!
❖ The shift away from content ownership facilitated by
always-on networks, to services.
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13. Digital Curation Tool Examples
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timboileau.wordpress.com
http://www.scoop.it/t/aect
tweetedtimes.com/#!/timboileau
paper.li/timboileau/
pinterest.com/timboileau/education-technology/

14. Digital Literacy Skills
Digital literacy skills relate to the use of digital
technology tools in activities that locate, create,
communicate, and evaluate information within a
networked (online) environment, mediated by
digital computing technologies.
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Boileau, 2014

15. Why Teach Digital Literacy Skills?
❖ Digital technology usage in and out the classroom has
flipped!
❖ Learner motivation tied to perceptions!
❖ Close the digital divide
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16. Teaching Digital Literacy Skills
❖ Requires a different epistemological framework than
teaching other forms of literacy!
❖ Not the same thing as teaching how to use technology!
❖ What is lacking are the skills to discriminate between
good information and bad information
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17. Creating Digital Fluency
❖ Critical thinking – evaluative techniques!
❖ Net savviness – knowing how the web works!
❖ Diversity of sources – preponderance of the evidence
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Miller & Bartlett, 2012

18. Digital Literacy - Best Practices
❖ Digital literacy should be pedagogically led and
integrated soundly into the curriculum;!
❖ Educators should use social software and collaborative
technologies to encourage learners to work together;!
❖ Educators should focus on skills that facilitate lifelong
learning and transferable skills, and !
❖ Learners should use technology tools to create
assessable deliverables.
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Mallon & Gilstrap, 2014

19. Teaching Digital Literacy (1 of 3)
❖ Functional Skills – hands-on, experiential learning to
develop competency in basic ICT skills.!
❖ Creativity – in reference to how learners think, construct
knowledge objects, and apply methods for sharing and
distribution of knowledge.!
❖ Collaboration – meaningful learning requires dialogue,
discussion, and exchange of ideas with and in relation to
others for socially constructed meaning-making to occur.
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Hague & Payton, 2010

20. Teaching Digital Literacy (2 of 3)
❖ Communication – digital literacy requires additional higher order
communication skills in a world where much communication is
mediated by digital technology. !
❖ Ability to Find and Select Information – related pedagogy is
inquiry-based learning; these are fundamental skills that are
essential for knowledge development as learners learn how to learn.!
❖ Critical Thinking and Evaluation – critical thinking is at the core of
digital literacy; it includes analysis and transformation of
information to create new knowledge; and requires reflection to
evaluate and consider different interpretations.
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Hague & Payton, 2010

21. Teaching Digital Literacy (3 of 3)
❖ Cultural and Social Understanding – provides learners
with a language and context for digital literacy to
promote broader understanding and interaction in the
creation of meaning.!
❖ E-safety – in teaching digital literacy, educators have an
obligation to support learners in development of skills,
knowledge, and understanding that will enable them to
make informed decisions in order to protect themselves
on an ongoing basis.
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Hague & Payton, 2010

22. Questions?