Enabling the digitisation and discoverability of cultural collections

Project background and context

The University of Melbourne is one of Australia’s leading universities, and owns over 30 Cultural Collections that support teaching, learning, research, and engagement activities at the University. The Cultural Commons is a platform through which these collections can be discovered, but only a fraction of the University’s collections have been digitised and made discoverable. Moreover, there is opportunity to improve functionality and searchability of the platform.

In response to this, the University had been working on a Collection Digitisation and Discovery project which had defined the case for change, the future state vision, and the delivery requirements. A multi-disciplinary team of customer and technology consultants from KPMG was engaged at the end of 2021 to build upon the work done to date and:

Map the experience functions and technology capabilities required to realise the future state

Identify and make a recommendation on implementation options

My role

As a Senior Consultant in the Technology stream, I was part of a 4-person delivery team. Given my expertise in similar engagements, I took the lead on defining the project approach in response to the client brief, and played a number of additional roles:

Customer experience designer: I led the design of customer journey stages and supporting actions required to realise the future state vision.

Technology strategist: I supported the Technology Lead in defining the technology capabilities required to support the future state customer journeys.

Storyteller: I designed the strategic framework and narrative flow of the final deliverable report.

The design challenge, reframed

How might we transform the University’s unique cultural collections into a range of globally visible assets that can be accessed and appreciated now and for generations to come?

Designing the end-to-end journey of collection custodians in the future state

Two key user groups were identified for the University’s collections discoverability offering, with a key question defined for each to guide future state design:

How does a collection custodian (e.g. a staff member from the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences) make a collection digitally discoverable?

How does a collection user (e.g. an epidemiology university student researching information for an assignment) discover a digital collection?

Drawing upon insights from provided documents (including the work done to date) and discovery sessions held with University stakeholders, we defined the end-to-end journey stages for both user groups in the future state. Each stage of the journeys were broken down into experience functions and the policy, governance and technology enablers. These journeys were tested, validated, and refined through stakeholder consultation across the University.

The collection custodian journey [Extract from final report]

The collection user journey [Extract from final report]

Defining the technology ecosystem required to support the end-to-end user journeys

With the future state experience vision in mind for both user groups, we explored what the supporting technology ecosystem needed to look like.

We decided that what the University required was a technology ecosystem which enables:

Connection across collections

Globally accessible and usable collections

Intuitive and delightful discoverability

Preservation of collections for future generations

Drawing on external insights and best practice, we then developed a conceptual technology capability model that outlines the technology capabilities required to support the future state vision. These technology capabilities spanned the following layers:

Interaction channels

Integration

Core capabilities

Enabling capabilities

The full technology capability model [Extract from final report]

Identifying and evaluating options for implementing the required technology capabilities

In defining the implementation options, there were two key design requirements that needed to be considered:

The need for a ‘discoverability portal’ that acts as a single point of entry for collection users

The need for a federated model for collections management within the University that balanced autonomy of the various faculties and consistency across the University

Working around these requirements, three implementation options of increasing complexity were defined and evaluated on the basis of their relative benefits, challenges, and risks. Based on our analysis of the desirability, financial viability, and technical feasibility, the recommended option emphasised investment into a solid foundation for future growth.

To support the University on the journey forwards, immediate next steps for putting our recommendations into action and setting up the remaining phases for success were developed.

The outcomes we achieved

The complexity of the journey to digitise and discover collections was untangled into clear, human-centred, easy-to-understand journey maps

The future state experience for both collection custodians and users was clearly defined, drawing inspiration from global best practices (including the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, Rijksmuseum, Yale University Library, and more)

Technical stakeholders in the University were engaged in the broader Collections Digitisation and Discovery project for the first time, enabling validation of technical insights and buy-in for the technology vision

The technology capabilities required to deliver on the future state experience were defined, with a recommended implementation option that navigated technical and operational constraints and balanced user desirability and financial viability