Archival Orientation for Undergraduate Students: An Exploratory Study of Impact Duff and Cherry

Page history

last edited by [email protected] 3 days, 19 hours ago

 

 

• over the last decade, interest in evaluating archival services and systems has grown; archivists and academic researchers have begun to investigate how different user groups search for and use archival material

 

• impact: the difference something makes, resulting in a "change in state, attitude or behavior of an individual or a group after engagement with the output." impact can be short, medium or long term; indirect or direct; intentional or unintentional; critical or trivial; simple or complex; negative or positive.

 

• this paper reports on a small exploratory study that investigated the impact of archival orientation sessions and was part of the Archival Metrics Project which "seeks to promote a culture of assessment in the archival domain by creating standardized user-based evaluation tools and other performance measures."

 

• 2005: Arc. Mets. Project investigators and advisory board (nine archival partner institutions) met to determine assessment tools needed

 

• Duff/Cherry et al focused on the impact that archival services have on users - and decided to conduct two small exploratory studies - a study of members of a Canadian historical society and the the impact of orientation sessions at Yale.

 

• interested to develop tools to investigate the impact of archival orientation sessions; an essential role of university archivists is to help students develop archival literacy

 

• there is little research that investigate how students learn about archives or the role of the archivist in providing such education

 

• Literature Review (very thorough! nice introduction to it)

◦                    much has been written about the value of teaching how to use archival sources - public school and university levels.

 

◦                    university archivists use orientation sessions to teach archival literacy

 

◦                    2002 Yakel found that there has been no empirical work evaluating the outcomes of different types of archival user education. she interviewed some archival users - their archival experience was not memorable

 

◦                    Robert Tissing conducted a survey about archival instruction in 12 institutions, and from the findings developed guidelines for conducting orientation interviews

 

◦                    Jill Katte used Tissing's framework to assess content of online tutorials and produced a model a web based archival user orientation

 

◦                    Susan Allen surveyed instructional programs in special collections at 75 liberal arts colleges - over 80% provided instruction through tours, exhibits and class visits.

 

◦                    Anna Allison did a mail survey - 96% of archives/manuscripts departments at major research insti. provide classroom instruction for undergraduate majors

 

◦                    archives make an impact on individuals, groups, society at large; archival scholars and practitioners have only recently discussed the need to assess these impacts with methods that systematically gather statistics, facts or stories that can articulate impact...

 

◦                    in the UK, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council have sponsored impact studies

 

◦                    2002, Wavell, Baxter, Johnson and Williams undertook extensive review of the literature to identify studies of the impact of libraries, archives, museums - the sector does have an impact, but hard evidence from museums and archives is lacking; gap in research impact evaluation/evidence of impact in the archive domain. evidence though that the domain itself is beginning to rectify this. identified a few research studies, one being the longitudinal survey by Public Service Quality Group (PSQG) in Great Britain

 

◦                    the above four people created a web portal to survey to assess archives/library/museum practitioners' awareness and experience with impact evaluation - found 52% of organizations were engaged in assessing social, learning or economic impact  - but evaluation itself was at an early stage, impact evaluation is one step beyond that

 

◦                    2006 Horton and Spence reviewed research on social and economic impact of archives and noted lack of research on the social, learning and economic impact of archives.  Developed archives-specific impact models

 

◦                    discussion of archival impact in North American literature is scarce, and often focuses on short term outcomes and performance evaluation.

 

◦                    Horton and Spence: social impact - inclusion or overcoming exclusion of individuals or groups in terms of poverty, education, race or disability and may also include issues of health, community safety, employment and education

 

◦                    Wavell et al argue that that literature fails to deliver evidence of a causal relationship between archives and social impact but note the potential for archival impact on social inclusion..

◦                    PSQG study shows a public perception that archives impact social development by preserving culture, strengthening family and community identity, providing learning opportunities, supporting business and administrative activity

 

◦                    studies of economic impact focus on ways archival users contribute to local economy - by supporting public transportation, local shops, restaurants and hotels.

 

◦                    Wavell et al  - learning impact:  individual or community's progression towards and change in their knowledge base through a variety of channels

 

◦                    Horton and Spence argues that the archives sector knows most about learning impact

 

◦                    conclusion of literature review: paucity of research on impact of archives and need to develop methods for gathering data that provide evidence of he difference archives make in individual's lives. need for longitudinal, national studies, using robust tools and indicators that provide evidence of causal links and report on how archives change the way people behave

 

• Developing Models

◦                    Brophy - Levels of Impact model, rates impact of information services on users in six levels (Horton and Spence adapted it and mapped it to Generic Social Outcomes and Generic Learning Outcomes)

 

◦                    literature suggests that few studies have investigate impact of archives on students' impressions of archival orientation sessions.

 

• Impact of an Orientation Session 

◦                    authors  surveyed professors and students who attended four orientation sessions at Yale University Library Manuscripts and Archives with the intent to explore methods for assessing impact of archi. instr. sessions. focused on two areas 1. students' level of confidence in finding archival material 2. subsequent use of material

 

◦                    used questionnaires to gather data from professors and students before the orientation session and at the end of the term

 

◦                    (see paper for detailed findings of study)

▪                                      prior to the orientation, over all students had not used many types of primary resources; over half not at all familiar with using archival sources; almost half rated their confidence in finding sources in archives as somewhat to not confident.

▪                                      after the orientation, mean satisfaction with the orientation was at 8 (10 being highest); they included ways to improve the sessions; described what they liked most and least; their confidence in using archival sources increased; professors reported that the orientation had an impact on the students' assignments, but the professors' satisfaction differed in regards to the range of sources used by students

 

• Future Research 

◦                    measuring impact is very difficult; further research is needed

 

replicating the study at other university archives may provide data on the impact of different types of orientation sessions - would be helpful to work more closely with professors and analyze citation from students' papers to identify archival materials used and in-depth interviews with students

 

*** metadata paper

Enhancing Archival Description for Public Computer Conferences of Historical Value Anne and Carol Hu

Page history

last edited by [email protected] 2 days, 21 hours ago

 

 

• traditional archival techniques for description:

archivist's knowledge about the medium in which the materials were created and functions records served

an understanding arrangement and structure of records

identification of record creators and major topics

• relying on the above is problematic in the description of elect. computer conferences (archivists know less about origin and contents of conferences, nature and function of records)
• this paper describes a research project designed to explore new and rigorous data gathering methods to complement traditional approaches for the archival desc. of computer conferences of historical value
• 1992 Bentley Historical Library conducted research to determine whether public conferences at U of M have archival value for documenting the intellectual, social and cultural life of a major acad. institution
• the project described in the paper was a small pilot study, distinct from the main thrust of the project, to explore new approaches to the description of computer conferences.
• Bentley project archivists determined that conferences have value and need to be documented, their import is often not documented in the administrative record
• need to develop thorough and helpful finding aids that reveal more information about conferences
• the traditional techniques for archi. desc. need to be enhanced for use with elect. conferences because:

applying approaches to screen data more difficult that paper

need to develop better narratives and inventories (more self-explanatory) of what happened at conferences for access by anyone from any computer

archivists might be subject to bias - favoring or believing a conference person or topic to be of more importance than another

these above reasons led the researchers to consider if using automated techniques would be more beneficial for analyzing and describing data from conferences

• researchers developed a research project to explore in detail the use patterns and structure of one public computer conference, using observational data taken unobtrusively from active files of the online conference itself

tested the applicability of traditional archival description paradigms into the new medium of computer conferences - enhanced version of trad. archiv. description (not a new methdology for)

researchers chose the conference Wing:Span to study.

Literature Review 

• no research lit. exists in AS on this form of elec. communication or on the application of statistical or other analytical techniques in archival descriptive processes of computer conference records
• although some have written about the need to apply basic archi. principles to new technology, but amplified; little to say about methods fro describing conferences for the purposes of historical documentation

Methodology 

• hypotheses:

certain individ. would dominate conference

number of participants, their responses and items responded to would be narrow

indivd. that dominated conference would also dominate initiation of items

there would be considerable variation in the activity of the conference at different times of year

individual items could be classified by type, and type would exhibit a life cycle for analogous types of traditional records (on going, administrative, issues of topical interest

Data Collection (this is a meta - description of the process of collection; describes and defines and explains why particular methods were used)

• researchers explain why they chose this conference
• method selected for data collection was to examine what information was available from the system-generated item descriptor lists
• they gathered information in vivo and manually coded and tallied the number of discussion items and participant levels in the related discussion responses
• they analyzed the data graphically, using exploratory data analysis (used when a researcher is not sure what to expect from the data to reveal preliminary patterns that can be further examined)
• counts were made of each of the participant's responses, topical items responded to and items initiated
• developed decision rules for data that might present problems for coding; divided collection activity between themselves

Data Analysis (also meta description - they really define and explain how the statistical methods used work, in order to explain their results )

• frequency counts of total responses were graphed
• used Analysis of Variance to look for differences among groups as the samples involve the same people measured over time - tests if the differences that occur are greater than what would occur randomly
• explored patterns of participation over time - information contained in the item descriptor lists to count the number of items initiated by month
• created a scatterplot to study participation patterns and dominant individuals
• used a statistical test of correlation and regression (a prediction measure - can predict the number of responses made from any given number of items responded to)
• (I am not going to detail findings here, see paper)

Findings about Wing:Span that could be used for Archival Description (these could not be discerned intuitively or by the help of summary item descriptions)

• the organizer of the conference dominated discussion and initiation of items
• some difference occurs in usage  - times of year
• wing:span deals primarily with topical issues related to women rather than ongoing administration or games
• few items exhibited life cycles similar to trad. archi. materials
• item initiators do not correspond well with item responders - not a good predictor of dominance in this conference
• strong correlation for individuals between number of responses and number of items responded to; can discern roles of participants
• participation was surprisingly broad

Generalizable findings for Archival Desc. of Computer Conferences

• key topics in terms of longevity and activity patterns
• degree of internal structure and arrangement of conference
• breadth of participation - whole conference and individuals
• dominant players among respondents or initiators
• degree of relationship between respondents and initiators - helps archivists make inferences about the purposes for which items are being initiated
• difference in usage over time periods
• points at which participants join or drop out
• apart from first two items, none of this information could have been obtained with trad, archival unstructured observation, nor could  software itself generate info.

Conclusions 

• this systematic approach might enhance archi. description of computer conf. of historical value and might also be helpful for other forms of electronic information; perhaps a starting point for prepackaged statistical or rule based automation system
• would need though to be replicated

 

 

Interaction in Virtual Archives: The Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections Krause and Yakel

Page history

last edited by [email protected] 1 day, 18 hours ago

 

 

• 2005 U of M school of information formed the Finding Aids Next Generation (FANG) Research Group to re-think and reimagine the display and functionality of online finding aids using web 2.0

used the Polar Bear Expedition Collections at the Bentley Historical Library on campus to experiment their ideas. These collections comprise items from/about the US soldiers sent to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks - American Intervention in Northern Russia 1918-1919. Many of the soldiers were from Michigan. These collections have been digitized.

 

• FANG team inspired by sociotechnical systems and selected the following features/functionalities to enhance the finding aid:

bookmarks (can be saved in users account)

visitors can add comments (searchable the identified as comments in search results)

link paths (footprints/navigation of visitors to the site) which shows relationships between documents, like Amazon suggesting books  - recommender/reputation system that uses the judgments and or behaviors of earlier users to help current visitors make navigational decisions

large number of categories from which to browse the collections

searching

user profile

 

• 2006 - site launched, FANG set up an evaluation program for the site; wanted to explore visitors' initial reactions, use patterns and interactions with this new type of finding aid

 

• research questions: does some level of interactivity increase the accessibility of archival materials? how will/do users interact with one another, augmenting their archival experience? Can social navigation features be used to facilitate the accessibility of archival materials? In order to answer the following:

What features facilitate/hinder this accessibility?

How does the finding aid address the expectations and predispositions of various users?

How do people interact with one another in this finding aid?

 

• methods used:

quantitative/qualitative data collected

content analysis

online survey

in-depth structured interviews

another purpose of the study was to test viability of data collection methods for reuse in future investigations

 

• four themes emerged from their research question: accessibility, common ground, awareness, interactivity.

 

Archival Literature 

•   accessibility: users' ability to make meaningful use of descriptions of archival materials or to enhance their understanding of archival materials; not just about ease of access to the materials physically/virtually but also related to the background a user brings to an archives, the "'intellectual and cognitive abilities required to make effective use' of archival description of materials."

they argue that by allowing arhiv. researchers to contribute descriptive notes and other information about the items in the collection, materials will be more intellectually accessible to a wider variety of users and researcher participation will enhance the meaning of the materials

this is important as the voice of the user, language user employs, the meaning that arises from a record's use is rarely captured in arch. desc.

authors reference Duff/Harris article, Stories and Names which calls for archivists to make apparent/transparent their biases and world-views and their presence known to users

archivists could create colophons that include insights about their thinking, knowledge of the materials, decisions and even biographical information. All of this would show to users that this is one viewpoint on the materials, and not the only. Also might help users understand the rationale for the processing of the collection, and provide authorial contribution to the archivist.

questions to this approach: can archivists identify biases so easily?

would this information diminish the authority of the finding aid?

would the colophons truly be useful to users amongst the vast amount of text that comprises many finding aids?

Light and Hyry recommend use of web based annotations (additions, amendments, references to other materials) to allow multiple voices to be heard about and item after processing is complete

 

Human - Computer Interaction Literature 

• Dourish and Chalmers: social navigation - info. system that supports collaborative activity...
• Dieberger et al: social navigation  - type of navigation "through which decisions are informed by the behavior of other people"
• Wexelblat and Maes: interaction history - records of the interactions of people and objects (one view of this is a highlighted passage in a book, made by a previous reader)..historical traces which can be used; they are clues to content and can be used to assess and navigate the information
• Lee: social interaction. Considers

◦                    place-making

◦                    common ground,

◦                    awareness and

◦                    interaction enablers

• Place is important in both archival and HCI literature. Places have social meaning, develop over time and can mean different things to different groups. (Harrison and Dourish). Created by their appropriation and adaption by users; information architecture can facilitate this - bookmarks, internal page consistency etc)
• Common Ground: requires shared assumptions about an activity, the meaning of artifacts, common knowledge about language and terminology.
• Awareness: knowledge about the presence of other users
• Interaction enablers: synchronous encounters via chat or information left as a byproduct of someone's activities
• authors mention the influence of a 5 month study on social navigation tools used on a website (Svensson and Hook) on their work - the study provided the best model for the research described in their article

 

Methodology 

• used web analytics - how people got to and navigated the site
• survey questionnaire on site; asked people to rat various features and provide information about their use of the site
• semistructured interviews: asked about accessibility, expectations of the site, site features, awareness of other users and social interaction
• analysis of user comments

 

Findings 

• from user profiles and survey - genealogists were the more engaged visitors to the site
• bookmarking was not a popular item..to consider for future would be del.icio.us to foster community
• comments by visitors:  error correction and information sharing (archivist responded to these, making transparent archival decision making process), and gives support to the idea that users' knowledge is needed/important for enriching archi. descr. and users gain a sense of ownership and vested interest in the site
• link paths: ambiguous response to these, led researches to add the line "researchers who viewed this page also viewed..."
• browse: popular and used more than advanced search
• problems with search function (me - perhaps not a robust enough taxonomy/vocabulary?)
• user profiles not that important to people, so perhaps the social aspect of the site was not that important to users?
• digitized collections very important

 

Table 2. Four Elements of Social Interaction in the Polar Bear Site

Four Social Interaction Elements1 Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections

Place-making: Digitized resources, bookmarks, consistent style Common Ground: Genealogical interests; Polar Bear Memorial Association Awareness: List of “new users”; user profiles, simultaneous visitors Interaction enablers: Comment feature, bookmarks, link paths

 

• researchers found that direct and indirect interaction and technological features enhanced the accessibility of archival materials. social tools can enhance the depth and accuracy of descriptions. but, there was limited use with the interactive features..perhaps this type of community building takes times, or maybe there were other factors (types of materials, what people want to do on the site) that influence whether a person will be online social...

 

• frustration (me): this site, what this team created, no longer exists. (I remember looking at it in March 2012.) The Bentley Historical Society decided it was too difficult to manage.. Much, if not all of the social interactivity functionality is gone. No more comments, user profiles, bookmarks, linked paths. What does that say about archivists and their work? The archivists/researchers created an online "place," a common ground, a socially interactive site, but then, did not have the resources? staff? infrastructure? in place to sustain it. Or perhaps something else influenced the taking down of the site? http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/polaread/about.html