Digitisation and Community Engagement – Future JISC funding

Following the success of projects such as the University of Oxford’s Great War Archive, JISC have continued exploration into the concept of community collections, that is digital resources that are created or enhanced by both user groups inside and outwith traditional academic audiences.

1914 Christmas ‘Comforts tin’ and card, from the Great War Archive

This was followed up the report by Chris Batt Consulting, Digitisation, Curation and Two-Way Engagement, which looked at some of the key strategic issues in creating and curating under such a model.

JISC will be continuing this work by publishing a call for projects undertaking the development of community content. It will be a joint call between the JISC Digitisation & eContent, and the Business and Community Programmes. Around £400,000 will be made available, for funding projects up to £75k each.

There will be two strands. Details are also on the JISC roadmap.

Strand A) Rapid Innovation – Rapid enhancement of existing digital resources to provide for greater engagement with previously untapped audiences
Strand B) Content development – Building new digital collections, or significant extending existing collections, via community engagement

The call will be published in December 2009, with a closing date for proposals likely to be the very end of January 2010.

Potential applicants may also be interested in the follow on project by the Great War Archive team at the University of Oxford. Entitled RunCoCo, the project will be helping to share and establish best practice in the development of community collections.