Dear all,
We are looking for a consultant to help us on broadening the audience of Art UK. Please see information below. If you are not interested in this yourself, please do send it on to someone who might be.
Many thanks
Alice
Alice Payne
Project Manager for Art UK
Public Catalogue Foundation
External Consultant Brief - Broadening the Audience of Art UK
About the Public Catalogue Foundation
The Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF) is a dynamic arts charity based in London, but with a national and global reach. Our charitable mission is to transform access to the UK's publicly owned art, much of which is not on display, for enjoyment, learning and research. Our priorities lie in mapping art collections, encouraging public engagement with them and improving our knowledge of these collections.
Your Paintings has been the PCF's flagship website showing the nation's entire oil painting collection in public ownership, photographed by the PCF over a ten-year period. Working with collections up and down the country, the PCF completed the digitisation programme in 2012, by which point it had recorded over 210,000 paintings from over 3,000 collection venues. The Your Paintings website was built in partnership with the BBC and attracts some 300,000 unique users per month. Other initiatives include Your Paintings Tagger, Art Detective and Masterpieces in Schools.
Art UK to Succeed Your Paintings
Art UK will replace Your Paintings in early 2016. Whilst the BBC will remain the lead partner in the project, Art UK will not sit on bbc.co.uk but have its own domain (ArtUK.org). The build costs of Art UK are being funded by Arts Council England, the Scottish Government and a charitable trust.
The vast majority of our national art collection is not on display. Showing art online allows audiences to find out about artworks in store whilst also encouraging visits to the collections. At the same time it opens up wonderful learning opportunities.
Sadly, around 90% of collections do not have the means to show their holdings of art on their own websites. We believe the solution to this problem is a single, shared digital national platform for all public art collections that unites the benefits of scale and technology. Instead of thousands of smaller collections each aspiring to build their own collection website, we believe there should be one sophisticated and sustainable national platform. That is Art UK.
The 200,000 plus oil paintings already digitised by the PCF will be shown on Art UK. Starting in late 2016 we are hoping to add the first of the 100,000 sculptures we plan to photograph. Collections will also have the opportunity to show on Art UK drawings, prints, drawings and watercolours they have already digitised. Art UK will become a global digital showcase for art in UK public collections.
A key advantage of Art UK sitting off bbc.co.uk is that we will be able to do commercial activities on the site, seek donations and show funders' and supporters' names.
In due course Art UK will become the working name for the charity.
Our Needs
Survey evidence for Your Paintings shows that two audiences are under-represented in their use of the site: the young and BAME audiences. We believe that a resource such as Art UK, which shows the national collection of art, should attract an audience that is more representative of the whole UK population.
The PCF seeks a consultant with considerable experience in guiding cultural organisations on how best to use digital assets to broaden their audience reach. Whilst we are happy for non-digital ideas to be part of the overall proposal, the focus of the required work should be on the digital side.
To help guide potential proposals, we outline below what we believe should be the key elements of the work to be undertaken on our behalf. Naturally, we are open to other suggestions.
1. Research. An initial period of getting to understand the Art UK project and the audience research that has been completed to date.
2. Audience Classification. We are extremely keen to be provided with a clear mechanism for classifying our potential Art UK audience. We need guidance on how to benchmark our audience against the general population and against audiences for other online cultural activities.
3. Barriers to reaching our target new audiences. We require a clear analysis of the barriers that currently prevent online cultural initiatives reaching 'excluded' audiences. In particular, we are keen for this analysis to present a spectrum of easier-to-reach through to impossible-to-reach users across our target new audience in order to allow the consultant to help us focus our proposed offers (see below) effectively.
4. Honing the definition of our target new audience. Taking into account 2 and 3 above, we will want guidance on defining more precisely the new audiences that we might cost-effectively reach.
5. Examples of digital projects that attract new audiences. We would like to see a minimum of six international examples of digital cultural initiatives that have successfully broadened their audience reach. Screen shots, short project descriptions and the key features/approaches that have proved successful in reaching new audiences should be listed.
6. Recommended new Art UK 'offers' for reaching our target audiences. Drawing on the above and the consultant's previous experience, we want to be given a minimum of five suggestions for features and initiatives that can be built on to Art UK later in 2016 that have a high chance of success in reaching our targeted new audiences. As noted above, we are principally looking for digital recommendations but are happy to receive ideas for non-digital initiatives. Some indication of cost must be attached to each recommendation.
7. Evaluation. Working alongside the PCF team and our web metrics consultant Chris Unitt, we require guidance on how best to evaluate the success of the new offers in reaching our target audience.
The funding for this consultancy work has been provided by Arts Council England, the lead funder behind the creation of Art UK. The recommendations for further Art UK features and initiatives that are made as part of this consultancy work will, subject to estimated costs and other PCF considerations, form part of a grant application to ACE in the Spring of 2016.
Costs
The budget for this work will be c. £9,500 + VAT, inclusive of expenses.
Timeline for Work
The deadline for completion of the work is 15th February 2016.
Reporting
The nominated contact person is Andrew Ellis, PCF Director. A set-up meeting will be arranged to discuss the project at the start of the work and full details of the Art UK and audience research to date will be provided. Interim meetings will be arranged as needed.
Proposal to Tender
The consultant's proposal to tender for this work should include details of:
- The relevant experience and competency possessed by the consultant and other personnel who will work on the project. Examples of at least two specific projects should be cited giving reasons why this experience is relevant.
- The methodology to be used in the proposed work.
- We are aware that there is already a good body of research around the barriers that prevent excluded audiences using digital cultural resources. We are not expecting significant fresh research here but an excellent assimilation of the existing research and evidence.
- Consultants are invited to partner with other consultants in tendering for this work.
- An indication as to how you have arrived at the budget for this work.
Please send your proposal to Andrew Ellis, PCF Director, at [log in to unmask]
Closing date for tenders
Monday November 9th. We are happy to discuss this work with consultants who are proposing to tender either over the phone or in person. We will make the appointment by Monday 16th November.
Andrew Ellis
Director
19th October 2015
From: Alice Payne
Sent: 23 October 2015 09:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Audience Engagement Consultant Tender
Dear all,
Please see attached a requirement specification for an Audience Engagement Consultant for Art UK.
Proposal to Tender
The consultant's proposal to tender for this work should include details of:
- The relevant experience and competency possessed by the consultant and other personnel who will work on the project. Examples of at least two specific projects should be cited giving reasons why this experience is relevant.
- The methodology to be used in the proposed work.
- We are aware that there is already a good body of research around the barriers that prevent excluded audiences using digital cultural resources. We are not expecting significant fresh research here but an excellent assimilation of the existing research and evidence.
- Consultants are invited to partner with other consultants in tendering for this work.
- An indication as to how you have arrived at the budget for this work.
Please send your proposal to Andrew Ellis, PCF Director, at [log in to unmask]
Closing date for tenders
Monday November 9th. We are happy to discuss this work with consultants who are proposing to tender either over the phone or in person. We will make the appointment by Monday 16th November.
Kind regards
Alice
Alice Payne
Senior Editor
Public Catalogue Foundation
Direct Line: 020 7395 0333
www.thepcf.org.uk
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