Dear Sir/Madam,
Social metadata and other contributions from users and stakeholders could enrich the existing metadata created by memory institutions and serve as useful contextual information for the institutions’ heritage resources. We want to explore current decision-making and practices underpinning the handling of social metadata/user contributed contents in memory institutions and we would be very grateful for your input to our study.
Our overall aim is to highlight key strategic and practical issues and concerns, best practices and challenges, to offer suggestions for the way forward and to invite further discussion.
We are inviting representatives from archives, libraries, public galleries and museums worldwide, particularly those who hold the main responsibility of overseeing the gathering and management of social metadata and/ or other user contributed contents, to take part in a survey.
The survey can be accessed from this link: http://vuw.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_2mDfl49Zm1kMuGx
The estimated amount of time needed to complete the survey questionnaire is 10-20 minutes. The amount of time may vary depending on your response to some questions. The survey link works best using Internet Explorer and will remain open until 31 January 2016.
This research is anonymous. All opinions and data will be reported and presented in aggregated form in such a way that you and your organisation will not be identifiable, and access to the raw data will be restricted to the researchers. It is anticipated that the research findings will be used as the basis for publications in journal articles and/or conference papers. All data collected from participants will be destroyed 2 years after the completion of the project.
For the purposes of this research:
• Social metadata is defined as 'Additional information about an item/ a collection that help people find, understand or evaluate its content. This additional information result from users/stakeholders' contributions. It may include additional tags that describe an item, contributors categorising an item or providing brief notes about an item/ collection.' (Adapted from Smith-Yoshimura, Karen and Cyndi Shein. 2011. Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives and Museums Part 1: Site Reviews. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC, p.10.)
• Other user contributed content refers to ‘An artefact that is contributed/generated by contributors outside the institution. It may include contributions of photos/images, records of first-hand experiences of an event, or reporting of/ linking to relevant resources that may be of interest to the institution.'
This research has been approved by the Victoria University of Wellington, School of Information Management Human Ethics Committee.
If you have any questions about the research, please contact Chern Li. If you would like to receive a summary of the findings (these will be in aggregated form), please email Benjamin with your contact details.
Thank you for your consideration. It is very much appreciated.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Chern Li Liew
Principal investigator [log in to unmask]
Mr Benjamin Moore
Research Assistant [log in to unmask]
___________________________________________________________
Dr Chern Li Liew
Acting Programme Director, Master of Information Studies (MIS)
Victoria University of Wellington,School of Information Management
P O Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Office: Rutherford House, RH 527
Phone: +64 4 463 5213
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/sim/about/staff/chernli-liew
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