Indicators, Participatory practices and Self-Assessment in CHI Digital Transformation

In this paper we conceptualise self-assessment to monitor participatory, data-driven approaches to digital transformation (DT) in the cultural heritage (CH) sector, providing impact assessment, legal framework support and value chain development to further the reuse of cultural heritage content by creative industries as well as stakeholder communities. Digital transformation (DT) is an opportunity to innovate CH, not only to adapt its modes of operation to the networked society, but more importantly to rediscover and realign its core mission of providing access to heritage. However, a solid evidential basis is currently lacking, due to an absence of systematic data gathering and performance monitoring. To this aim, we propose an Open Observatory to collect CH DT performance data, as well as the development of a Self-Assessment tool (SAT) for Cultural Heritage professionals and the CH support sector. The SAT can be a key element for efforts by CH networks on capacity building in the sector, and allows research into best practices, combined with data monitoring. The paper aims to present a concept and demonstrator. The proposed SAT takes a novel approach in this domain, as we argue that sustainable DT should encompass indicators for impact, audience development and community engagement paired to indicators on the digital work processes, to “close the digitalisation circle”. In this interactive presentation, we invite participants at the conference to learn about and engage with our design choices through our participatory space, and test the self-assessment demonstrator as part of our validation process