Assessing the Scholarly Use of Web Archives in Ireland RESAW 2023: Exploring the Archived Web During a Highly Transformative Age 5-6 June 2023 Marseille Sharon Healy Helena Byrne Maynooth University British Library Email: [email protected] Twitter: @ScHealyire Email: [email protected] Twitter: @HBee2015 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License WARCnet Special Report ‘Scholarly Use of Web Archives Across Ireland: The Past, Present & Future(s)’ Forms part a larger collaborative study to be published as a WARCnet Special Report. Report sought to i. examine the causes for the loss of digital heritage and how this relates to Ireland, ii. offer an overview of the landscape of web archives based across Ireland, and their availability, and accessibility as resources for Irish based research, and iii. provide some insight into the awareness of, and engagement with, web archives in Irish third-level academic institutions. warcnet.eu WARCnet Special Report ‘Scholarly Use of Web Archives Across Ireland: The Past, Present & Future(s)’ Main causes for the Loss of Digital Heritage in Ireland include the ● failure of successive ROI governments to negotiate copyright and legal deposit legislation in line with advances in publishing and communications technologies, ● current deficiencies of ROI copyright and legal deposit legislation to include the routine web archiving of the Irish national domain as part of a national legal deposit scheme. warcnet.eu WARCnet Special Report ‘Scholarly Use of Web Archives Across Ireland: The Past, Present & Future(s)’ The Report discusses ● varying types of web archives which might be used to conduct research on Irish based topics, ● a more focused approach on 3 main web archiving initiatives which capture websites as part of their efforts for the preservation of digital heritage for the island of Ireland being the ● NLI Web Archive ● PRONI Web Archive ● UK Web Archive warcnet.eu WARCnet Special Report Assessing the Scholarly Use of Web Archives in Ireland This presentation focuses on the results from an anonymous survey which aimed to provide some insight into the awareness of, and engagement with, web archives by lecturers, researchers and students in Irish third-level academic institutions. ● ● ● ● Purpose of the survey Non-research use of web archives Research use of web archives Takeaways warcnet.eu Purpose of the Survey Collection of anonymous data via an online survey. Main objectives: ● investigate awareness of web archives and archived web content as a resource for study/research, ● generate a better understanding of the users of web archives and how and why archived web content is used or not used for study/research, ● explore the challenges and opportunities for using web archives and archived web content as a resource for study/research. Survey respondents (N=239) users (n=59) non-users (n=180) of web archives for research or study Survey Recruitment Collection of anonymous data via an online survey. Recruitment entailed ● November to December 2018, 970 recruitment emails sent to academics (mostly head of departments, or head of degree programmes) and to department administrators in all fields of research at nine universities in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI). ● also disseminated on social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn). ● open from November 2018 until January 2019. Survey respondents (N=239) users (n=59) non-users (n=180) of web archives for research or study Reasons for Non-use of Web Archives for Research Non-User Respondents (n=180) were asked about their reasons for not using an online public web archive for their studies or research (n=180) were not aware of the availability of web archives as resources for studies/research 78.33% (=141) did not know how to find archived websites relevant to their studies/research in a web archive 45.00% (=81) did not know how to use a web archive for my studies/research 41.67% (=75) unsure of the credibility or authority of using archived websites as a primary source for my studies/research 26.11% (=47) did not know how to cite/reference an archived website from a web archive to include 17.78% (=32) in my studies/research unsure about copyright implications for using archived web content for my studies/research 13.33% (=24) Reasons for Non-use of Web Archives for Research Respondents (n=180) were first asked about their reasons for not using an online public web archive for their studies or research (n=180) Other reason(s) for not using an online web archive for your studies/ research (please specify) 14.44% (=26) ● ● 8 respondents indicated that they were unsure as to how relevant, useful, or beneficial, a web archive would be for their research. 16 respondents indicated that a web archive was not relevant for their research, of which 4 noted their research required up-to-date sources, and 3 identified as early to modern period historians that required alternate archival sources. I feel that I do not have the technical skills to use a web archive for my studies/research 7.78% (=14) Disciplines of Users of Web Archives Reasons for the Use of Web Archives for Research For coursework purposes (=38) ● as a primary source in an academic essay/assignment for my course (=25) ● to document the history of an organisation in an academic essay/assignment for my course (=12) ● as a secondary source for a thesis (=1) For professional publication and historical research purposes (=33) ● as a primary source in a professional research report (=10) ● as a primary source in a professional publication (=16) ● to document the history of an organisation in a professional report/publication (=7) For teaching purposes (=25) ● as part of my teaching materials for undergraduate students (=11) ● as part of my teaching materials for postgraduate students (=13) ● to recover old advertisements for teaching (=1) Reasons for the Use of Web Archives for Research For qualitative and quantitative research purposes (=12) ● for content analysis / textual analysis / discourse analysis (=5) ● for data mining / topic modelling / data visualisation (=4) ● for network analysis / geo-spatial analysis (=3) For access to materials no longer available on the live web (=5) ● for accessing content/websites no longer available on the web (=3) ● for access to “policy pages that were no longer publicly accessible, so as to compile evidence” (=1) ● for a study of “longitudinal data concerning water parameters” (=1) Reasons for the Use of Web Archives for Research Other Reasons (=9) ● using a web archive for personal and historic interests, ● using archived web content as a secondary source for a thesis, ● content/websites no longer available on the web ● access to “policy pages that were no longer publicly accessible, so as to compile evidence” (User, Humanities) ● Using archived web content for a study of “longitudinal data concerning water parameters [as] sometimes websites only display current or recent results” (User, Dental Science) . Perceived Challenges for Using Web Archives Representation of responses for perceived challenges for the future use of archived web content (n=50) by users and non-users |> Using web archives and archived web content (r=40) Search and navigation (r=10), Volume of data (r=10), Access and discovery (r=9), Representativeness and completeness of the data (r=5), Non-established source/source credibility (r=4), Citation (r=2) |> Awareness of the existence, content, and value of web archives (r=16) |> Data management and preservation (r=11) Data management and data reliability (r=5), Storage (r=3), Technical challenges (r=3) |> Not relevant for research topic (r=4) Takeaways AWARENESS & COLLABORATIONS ARE KEY Overall, the findings demonstrated ● a limited awareness of the existence of web archives in Irish academic institutions, ● for an unfamiliar audience, more effort is needed to demonstrate the importance of archiving the web and to promote the value of web archives as resources for research, ● a need for the dissemination of use cases in Irish based research that will demonstrate the use of web archives as a research resource Takeaways AWARENESS & COLLABORATIONS ARE KEY Overall, the findings demonstrated ● a small community of web archive users in Irish academic institutions, at different levels of education and academia, aged from 18 to 65 years, and from a broad range of research fields. Takeaways AWARENESS & COLLABORATIONS ARE KEY Overall, the findings demonstrated ● a need to develop multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research networks in Irish academia to address potential solutions for developing research models and paradigms for the use of web archives for Irish based research that are fit for purpose in a broad spectrum of research fields. ● a need to develop frameworks to provide course modules for students in the use of web archives for research, and training courses for educators on how to incorporate web archived content as part of their teaching materials and methods. Assessing the Scholarly Use of Web Archives in Ireland THANK YOU Sharon Healy Helena Byrne Maynooth University British Library Email: [email protected] Twitter: @ScHealyire Email: [email protected] Twitter: @HBee2015 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License