Mapping an emerging ecosystem of open images [1133] Members : #OER16

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Tue, Apr 19 2016, 11:30am – 1:00pm

Authors: Theo Kuechel

Room: Prestonfield

Theme: Strategic and reputational advantages of openness

Type: Presentation

Description

The quantity of open images available online is growing exponentially. An emerging challenge for the OER community is to identify relationships between sources of images.

The ecosystem of open images is complex. Provenance, openness and issues of quality are all factors to be considered.

This presentation will showcase examples from three distinct sources, and discuss the challenges and affordances of each respectively.

Museums and cultural heritage archives including the OpenGlam initiative. These institutions encourage public engagement including tagging, sharing and re-purposing and include valuable metadata. A key consideration in this category is the quality and agency of the content in order to maximise the potential of ‘Open.’ (Terras, M. 2014)
Social media platforms sharing community and local history. My research on Facebook indicates geographical locations who develop community archives of historic and contemporary images are commonplace. Participation and activity within these groups is self sustaining and mirrors the public engagement found with the launch of the Library of Congress images on Flickr Commons (Springer, et al 2008).
Two major challenges in this category, must be addressed. The need for the open education community to establish a meaningful dialogue with any such group, and discuss the value of sharing (National Council on Archives. No date). Also establishing the provenance of images, many of which will be personal artefacts owned by individuals, orphan works or simply ‘taken from the web’ may prove problematic.
The final source are amateur archivists and collectors with specialised knowledge and interests. These individuals curate and share visual artefacts such as vintage technology, product design or ephemera. The artefacts are often annotated with very precise information and use Creative Commons licences. Issues with such resources include quality, licensing and provenance. There are examples where copyright material has been scanned or photographed and uploaded, illegally or unwittingly, creating pitfalls for prospective users.

Mapping the sources of the images,identifying their respective affordances and challenges will help educational practitioners and learners find and select images, and understand their potential and limitations. This presentation will share and make available an online interactive map which can be adapted and reused by open education practitioners.

References

Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division, Springer, M., Dulabahn, B., Michel, P., Natanson, B., Reser, D. W., … & Woodward, D. (2008, October). For the common good: The Library of Congress Flickr pilot project. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. [PDF] Available at http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_report_final.pdf Accessed 31 October 2015

National Council of Archives. (No Date) Community Archives engaging with wider agendas. [PDF] Available at http://www.communityarchives.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Engaging_with_wider_agendas.pdf Accessed 10th November 2015

Terras, M. (2014, October). [Melissa Terras’ Blog] Reuse of Digitised Content (1): So you want to reuse digital heritage content in a creative context? Good luck with that. Available at: http://melissaterras.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/reuse-of-digitised-content-1-so-you.html Accessed, 3 November 2015

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