Practice Research Voices (PRVoices) - Scoping the Open Library of Practice Research
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Westminster
Department Name: Research and Enterprise Services
Abstract
How do we better share the knowledge generated by artists, architects, curators and creative practitioners whose work addresses critical and urgent priority areas, ranging from cultural heritage, health and well-being to climate change and global security?
How could a world-leading system for accessing knowledge developed using practice research transform ideas, engagement and innovation across sectors, academic disciplines and industry?
Why are such voices missing an efficient platform that could transform academic, economic and cultural impacts?
This project will develop ways to let the people that perform practice research capture details of their work and share it with others. It will be informed by a report that was published in the last few months based on discussions with a large number of the people working in the field of practice research. The report established that; 1) in all fields of research, by doing something, you are engaging in practice. Therefore, the field of research into practice covers almost every area of scientific endeavour, and 2) current software for distributing research was failing the practice research community. The report contained recommendations that we aim to implement as a piece of software called a repository. This online library will allow the people who engage in practice research to make their work available to all.
The project provides value for money by using existing repositories and working with established practitioners to figure out how to make these more efficient for researchers, institutions and funders.
We will be working with three repositories - one that is quite advanced in addressing the needs of practice researchers (University of Westminster/ Haplo), one that is currently working with museum and gallery content (British Library and V&A) and another that is currently good at working with "typical" written article content (Jisc). By testing across a range of repositories we will produce a report at the end of the project that contains recommendations to improve all of them.
Key to the overall proposal is an equitable landscape for all research, in which non-STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) research is understood more clearly and talked about as of equal value to papers, publications and monographs. Moving beyond the reference to non-text outputs as "Other", such as Film, Databases, Archives and curated exhibitions, we highlight the technical issues and lack of parity for researchers working across Arts and Humanities.
The project will build upon an existing community of practice researchers who are essential to the function, role and future of the University sector, contributing nationally and internationally to the broader discussion of practice research. This community, along with the research team, becomes a kernel from which to develop a rigorous academic and technical software solution that addresses how practice research is described, stored, discovered and further elaborated.
How could a world-leading system for accessing knowledge developed using practice research transform ideas, engagement and innovation across sectors, academic disciplines and industry?
Why are such voices missing an efficient platform that could transform academic, economic and cultural impacts?
This project will develop ways to let the people that perform practice research capture details of their work and share it with others. It will be informed by a report that was published in the last few months based on discussions with a large number of the people working in the field of practice research. The report established that; 1) in all fields of research, by doing something, you are engaging in practice. Therefore, the field of research into practice covers almost every area of scientific endeavour, and 2) current software for distributing research was failing the practice research community. The report contained recommendations that we aim to implement as a piece of software called a repository. This online library will allow the people who engage in practice research to make their work available to all.
The project provides value for money by using existing repositories and working with established practitioners to figure out how to make these more efficient for researchers, institutions and funders.
We will be working with three repositories - one that is quite advanced in addressing the needs of practice researchers (University of Westminster/ Haplo), one that is currently working with museum and gallery content (British Library and V&A) and another that is currently good at working with "typical" written article content (Jisc). By testing across a range of repositories we will produce a report at the end of the project that contains recommendations to improve all of them.
Key to the overall proposal is an equitable landscape for all research, in which non-STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) research is understood more clearly and talked about as of equal value to papers, publications and monographs. Moving beyond the reference to non-text outputs as "Other", such as Film, Databases, Archives and curated exhibitions, we highlight the technical issues and lack of parity for researchers working across Arts and Humanities.
The project will build upon an existing community of practice researchers who are essential to the function, role and future of the University sector, contributing nationally and internationally to the broader discussion of practice research. This community, along with the research team, becomes a kernel from which to develop a rigorous academic and technical software solution that addresses how practice research is described, stored, discovered and further elaborated.
Publications
Evans J
(2023)
Telling a story with metadata or Always drink upstream from the herd: What if your metadata isn't properly represented in the stream?
in Information Services & Use
| Description | 1. Agreeing on and articulating a standard for sharing practice research objects will increase the perception of their value in research recognition and evaluation mechanisms, and the wider scholarly landscape. Improving their capture, preservation and discovery will underwrite an improved sharing culture in the community. a. The PRVoices framework for practice research objects is based on the Cayuse model of a portfolio, underpinned by individual items, which can be added on an ongoing basis, and which have additional context and narrative overlaid on top. This finding has been informed by feedback from the community during the project. b. The standards landscape needs to actively support practice research to ensure it is discoverable, can benefit from interoperability and to ensure that practice research outcomes can be registered regardless of where it is located. 2. The PR platform needs to be an interactive service that reflects form and function (beauty) and enables discoverability, citation and preservation of practice research. It must be embedded in the community and the digital spaces that they work within. a. The community wants a platform that recognises all contributors, collaborators and participants. It must capture and preserve ongoing processes, documentation and outputs, and make them discoverable. There is a need to balance standardisation (via schema) with flexibility (via platform interface), and ensure the platform enables researcher workflows. b. The Cayuse platform is purpose built for the sharing and reuse of art and design research, tailored to the needs of visually driven research. We have identified further areas for development to expand this platform to meet the needs of communities beyond the University of Westminster. 3. The PR community is made up of diverse disciplines, specialists, and existing communities of practice, all with their own cultures and a range of motivations for their interest. Engagement with all parts of the PR community is the key to building successful culture change. a. This includes an ongoing conversation with the diverse community of PR to understand how to represent robustness for practice research. 4. Practice Research has a range of sustainability challenges. a) By its nature PR is more complex and time-consuming to capture than text-based outputs. However, there are capacity issues and a skills gap across this landscape. b) Specialist expertise is an 'add on' rather than being embedded on an ongoing basis (e.g. research assistants are only employed to support REF submissions); small specialist institutions don't have the resourcing to support a nuanced capture of PR; skills training, expertise, and support material are all lacking a coherent approach. c) Preservation of practice research is a key priority. Building effective integrations with repository software, and the skills and understanding of planning for preservation needs to be embedded across the PR community. |
| Exploitation Route | We have 5 recommendations: Enacting these recommendations would drive PR toward the AHRC strategic objectives of world-class places, transforming infrastructure, and working at the head of thriving communities. They make PR and embodied research FAIR, enabling world-class innovation and world-class ideas. The recommendations are based on an assumption of how the PRVoices and SPARKLE teams could join together to take this work forward with a mandate from the AHRC. They have a broad geographic and discipline coverage, maintaining and expanding their combined expertise. These are: 1. Maintaining the partnership with the community is the foundation for all future work and continues the culture change needed to make progress. 2. Work with the community to ensure the PRVoices framework embeds PR in open standards. Practice researchers will benefit from interoperability, discoverability and resource savings that researchers in other disciplines take for granted. 3. The AHRC PR platform needs to be more than a retrospective archive and become a tool (a "scribe on the side") a practice researcher works with on an ongoing basis 4. Consolidate existing good practice and prioritise the development of a training programme of practice research specific skills, supported by online resources, and a network of experts across the UK. 5. The AHRC PR platform needs long-term, sustainable investment in capacity, people and infrastructure to ensure success. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Education Culture Heritage Museums and Collections Other |
| URL | https://blog.westminster.ac.uk/prvoices/ |
| Description | A DOI is not enough: improving the discoverability and re-usability of practice based arts research and data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This presentation highlighted findings in relation to discoverability and re-usability and also the work Westminster have done to contribute to guidance for practice based PhD doctoral researchers |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/records/10653428 |
| Description | A DOI is not enough: improving the discoverability and re-usability of practice based arts research and data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This blog post was invited based on a presentation (previously reported on) delivered at Open Research London early in 2024. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2024/07/02/a-doi-is-not-enough-can-practice-research-... |
| Description | A Song of [N]ISO and FAIR (or how to remove the OTHER from repository crosstalk) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This short (7 minute) presentation aimed to pose some ideas about how repositories could improve the catpure of research outputs from disciplines not currently well represented. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://or2023.openrepositories.org |
| Description | Capturing and preserving practice research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A blog post highlighting the project to the digital preservation community and what might be of interest. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.dpconline.org/blog/capturing-and-preserving-practice-based-research |
| Description | Composing for the non-text infrastructure dance |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | One of the three PRVoices work streams was metadata and persistent identifier. This presentation gave an introduction to the work done prior to PRVoices and the challenges faced by disciplines creating practice research outputs and ended with a call to action from the different communities about how they might get involved. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://doi.org/10.34737/vv0z9 |
| Description | Describing the practical - equity and parity in metadata for practice research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We described our recent work on evolving a metadata schema within a repository that includes rich support for practice research and detailing the contributions of all those involved in the work. There was a follow up discussion session which resulted in a google doc of notes and ideas. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://niso.plus/np23schedule/ |
| Description | Digital Preservation Coalition Clinic |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The team were able to highlight to the digital preservation community the work that the project is doing and led to the writing of a blog post. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.dpconline.org/blog/a-dpclinic-on-persistent-identifiers |
| Description | Improving the discoverability of Practice Research Processes, Outputs and Data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This (invited) presentation highlighted the findings and recommendations of this work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/2023/09/lets-learn-together-join-us-in-the-cultural-heritage... |
| Description | Launch Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This event (hosted by the Jisc Digital Research Community) aimed to launch the two practice research scoping projects funded by the Scoping Future Data Services call - PRVoices and SPARKLE. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://research.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2022/02/14/next-steps-for-practice-research/ |
| Description | Metadata, PIDs and a taxonomy workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | At NISO Plus 2022 we proposed to prioritise ORCID, DataCite, RAiD, Crossref, CRediT, COAR and RIOXX. However when we brought together a planning team to discuss the practicalities for the metadata and PIDs workshop (including the tight timescales) we realised we couldn't address them all. We had the initial survey results by then and it became clear that there were three priorities - DataCite, RAiD and CRediT. So we ran a workshop for those who had expressed an interest via the project survey and representatives from the various communities to bring these voices together. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://blog.westminster.ac.uk/prvoices/workshop-metadata-persistent-identifiers-pids-and-a-taxonomy... |
| Description | NTRO Gaggle - Networking to Nurture Non-Textual Research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The session aimed to provide a foundation for continued collaboration between communities working with NTRO and PID infrastructure stakeholders. The goal was to ensure the evolving needs of diverse research practices are reflected in strategies and implementations surrounding persistent identification. Outcomes may include the formation of working groups to progress specific areas in a collaborative manner. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14391/3193 |
| Description | NTRO Gaggle: Birds of a Feather: Research Data Alliance 22nd Plenary |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This was the first focussed engagement with the Research Data Alliance community, a community driven initiative to enable researchers and innovators to openly share and re-use data across technologies, disciplines, and countries to address the grand challenges of society. It is the space whereby we aim to build global community around non traditional research outputs and practice research. It discussed the need to (1) to consider NTROs and how the PR Voices framework (based on the PR Voices and SPARKLE projects) were also relevant to areas e.g. participatory action research. (2) for documentation, skills development and training. (3) to make the case for the benefits for engaging with and becoming part of the community/conversations (4) to ensuring that the correct objects and outputs and contributors are defined, are part of and have parity in the global information 'space' / FAIR ? Open / different but related to 'collections' (4) to look outside the current standards space for other places / examples where these things have already been characterised (e.g. legal, cultural work) i.e. not starting from scratch |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.rd-alliance.org/ntro-gaggle-boosting-non-text-support-through-experiential-and-collabora... |
| Description | Open research and practice based researchers |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The PRVoices team shared their findings up to this date (Nov 2022) with interested communities as part of an Open Research event hosted by Northumbria University. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Opening repositories to practice research: sharing the findings of the Practice Research Voices (PR VOICES) and Sustaining Practice Assets for Research, Knowledge, Learning and Education (SPARKLE) projects |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This presentation highlighed findings and recommendations from both the PR Voices and SPARKLE projects to a key stakeholder community |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://or2023.openrepositories.org |
| Description | PRVoices (with SPARKLE) Final Community Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Both project teams gave an update on progress. The PR Voices team presented findings around priorities for the community in relation to design (beauty), functionality, suggested changes to output types, preservation integration questions, a first look at the draft Cayuse (Haplo) schema, an update on conversations around DataCite, CRediT and RaiD, finishing with an update on the emergent themes discovered thus far. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://blog.westminster.ac.uk/prvoices/pr-voices-with-sparkle-final-community-event/ |
| Description | PRVoices at the UK ORCID Consortium Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We shared our findings thus far with a key persistent identifier community - ORCID. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Practice Research Perspectives: Partnering to Ponder Persistent Identifiers for the Non-tangible |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | PR Voices focussed on a number of specific persistent identifiers. The PIDfest 2024 conference brought together members of a range of PID communities - providing an opportunity to speak to them in the same place. This presentation gave an update on the findings from the project and aimed to stimulate thinking. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://repozitar.techlib.cz/entities/publication/011298ff-9ac9-4f4b-bf25-1fbfb34d6c05 |
| Description | Practice Research Voices (PR Voices): A case study (presentation) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This presentation highlighed findings from the project and barriers to practice research benefiting from persistent identifiers in current institutional workflows |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/w29y9/practice-research-voices-pr-voices-a-case-s... |
| Description | Practice Research Voices: Findings, Recommendations, and Next Steps |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This (invited) presentation highlighted the findings and recommendations of this work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://data.bathspa.ac.uk/articles/media/Capturing_Creativity_2023_-_Presentation_3_-_Practice_Rese... |
| Description | Practice research and repositories: international practices in unlocking arts research (panel) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This panel including UK and a colleague from the University of Cape Town who is carrying out related work highlighted a range of voices with an interest in broadening inclusion of practice research in the wider open standards landcape, enabling all those in the intersectional practice research community to benefit. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://or2023.openrepositories.org |
| Description | Proposal for IG: Data, process and NTRO in the creative and performing arts Birds of a Feather Session. Research Data Alliance Plenary 23. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The P23 BoF session took a 'Creative, Visual and Performing Arts' approach to discuss the management of data and process - a slightly different approach to P22 and built on discussions at PIDFest 2024. It was agreed that an Interest Group (IG) focussed on data, methods, and processes in creative, visual, and performing arts should be initiated, building momentum and fostering international sector engagement. Participants shared strategies and developed a roadmap to advance the recognition and effective management of data within these specific art forms, with key milestones set for 2025: (1) Establishing a dedicated Interest Group (2) Implementing an action plan: drafting a case statement (January 2025), submitting an IG proposal (April 2025), and holding the first meeting at P25 (3) Building international partnerships for ongoing collaboration. This BoF highlighted further areas where open standards and tools could be extended/adopted, and a representative from Leiden University in the Netherlands has now joined as Co-Chair of the proposed IG. expressing support for continued engagement and a subsequent offer to act as co-Chair of an RDA IG focused on NTROs. We continue to work on diversifying our geographic representation which will be enabled by the Draft Statement of Work and focussed conversations outside the Plenary. While creative and performing arts provide valuable perspectives on challenges unique to non-traditional research outputs, the organizers recognize that using "NTRO" will encourage wider participation from social and natural sciences where such outputs are also significant. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.rd-alliance.org/members/adam-vials-moore/plenary-participation/?application_id=171665 |
| Description | Putting people before technology: how communities build better research infrastructure |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A presentation focused on the people aspects of the PRVoices project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.armaconference.com/en/programme-page |
| Description | Telling a story with metadata: always drink from the upstream. What if your metadata isn't properly represented in the stream |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This presentation shared some of the findings from the project and highlighted the story of practice researchers who are not represented in the metadata, interoperability and discoverability landscape. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://niso.plus/np23schedule/ |
| Description | The process is the work - scribe at the side sectional infrastructure |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This short (7 minute) presentation aimed to highlight approaches taken to supporting the capture of process rather than end product alone - referencing the PR Voices and SPARKLE work and that of Octopus. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://or2023.openrepositories.org |
| Description | Towards a National Repository Infrastructure for Practice Research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A panel presentation to share the findings of the PRVoices and SPARKLE projects and representation from the PRAG-UK report authors. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/music/about-us/events/2022/september/rma-durham-confer... |
| Description | UK DataCite summer meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We presented the outcomes of discussions from the project to the UK DataCite community - one of the key persistent identifier communities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Working with a research community to identify barriers to reuse in practice research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Project team member Holly Ranger presented some preliminary findings from the PR Voices Survey at the 17th International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC), 13-16 June. The IDCC is an annual event for the digital curation community to network, share the outcomes of research and practice projects, and to showcase works in progress that offers insights or practical lessons that advance digital curation research or practice. In conclusion, the data mapping exercise identified that there were socio-cultural as well as technical barriers to research data sharing and reuse in practice research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://blog.westminster.ac.uk/prvoices/pr-voices-at-the-17th-international-digital-curation-confere... |