Digital Curation for Information Professionals (DCIP) Certificate

Photo of student scanning slides to digitize them. With information growing at a rapid pace, organizations have a critical need for digital curation professionals to manage and preserve digital assets. The Digital Curation for Information Professionals (DCIP) certificate program is designed for individuals currently in the library, archives, or digital curation field, or who are planning to enter it, but wish to enhance their digital skills. The program, through three online courses, takes you on a journey from introductory through advanced digital curation lessons while focusing on practical applications.

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Is DCIP a fit for you?

This is the program for you if you:

Are in or entering the library, archives, or curation field
Would like to advance your knowledge of digital curation skills and techniques
Would like to boost your library, archives, or curation career

Why choose the DCIP program?

We tailor projects and coursework to your experience level and goals for a customized educational experience. We teach digital curation theories and techniques in successive steps from introductory through advanced so that each level of understanding builds upon knowledge acquired in the program – creating an exciting and attainable journey that culminates in advanced skill levels. The DCIP focuses on practical applications and hands-on applied learning opportunities, giving you the tools to apply these skills directly and immediately to your career. Some of the other great benefits of our program:

World-renowned professors who are not only experts in next-generation technologies, but are helping to design them
Prestigious institution, ranked #2 in the USA by TheBestSchools.org and #8 by US News & World Report
Fully online to fit your schedule
Designed to accommodate working professionals
3 courses, less than one year (January – August)

Meet Your Instructors

Mark Conrad

Mark Conrad joined the Advanced Information Collaboratory (AIC) in 2020, and taught the Digital Curation for Information Professionals (DCIP) Certificate Program. Prior to that he served as an Archives Specialist at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for 28 years. With over 30 years of experience in the archives field, he is currently involved in research projects on digital curation, data management, digital asset management systems, and computational thinking in archival science education funded through IMLS, the National Park Service, and the Army Research Lab.

At NARA, he collaborated with leading scientists and engineers from around the world to develop future curation technologies – focusing on workplace solutions, and was the Director for Technology Initiatives for NHPRC. He also developed and ran digital archives labs dedicated to research on long term preservation of digital materials, and served on the White House Subcommittee on Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and its Committee on Technology.

Mr. Conrad also worked at the Rhode Island State Archives and Penn State University. In addition, he was a Senior Fulbright Scholar teaching electronic records courses to graduate students and information professionals at University College Dublin. He also taught online electronic records classes for the University of Dundee, Scotland. He is a member of the working group that developed and maintains ISO 14721 (OAIS) and ISO 16363 (Trustworthy Digital Repositories) among other ISO standards.

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Richard Marciano

Richard Marciano is the founding director of the Advanced Information Collaboratory (AIC), which focuses on exploring the opportunities and challenges of “disruptive technologies” for archives and records management (digital curation, machine learning, AI, etc.), and leveraging the latest technologies to unlock the hidden information in massive stores of records. He recently launched the AIC “FARM” Initiative on the Future of Archives and Records Management, which leverages advances in Computational Archival Science (CAS) through the mapping of Computational Thinking to Archival Science using AI, Machine Learning, and CAS.

He is also a professor at the U. Maryland iSchool, and an affiliate professor at the U. Maryland Computer Science Dept. and Institute for Systems Research at the School of Engineering. Prior to that, he was a Professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 6 years. He was also a Research Scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) for 13 years. His research interests center on digital curation, digital preservation, sustainable archives, and big data. He is also the 2017 recipient of the Emmett Leahy Award for “outstanding and sustained work in digital records and information management”. He holds degrees in Avionics and Electrical Engineering, a Master’s and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Iowa, and conducted a postdoc in Computational Geography.

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Student Testimonials

“I am thrilled that I took part in this program. I was exposed to ideas and tools that help me better understand and apply concepts to my daily work life. The individuals in my cohort and the instructors made the program very worthwhile and valuable. The overall experience was great.”

“This was an excellent hands-on program!”

“I enjoyed how hands-on and practical the assignments were. Professor Marciano had a real focus on making sure we understood the tools we were using, and I feel I gained usable knowledge and experience.”

“The Digital Curation for Information Professionals (DCIP) Program is a worthy investment in higher education. It offers a rigorous program with cognizance of our full-time working professional roles- plus it’s chock-full of exposure to the essential tools and systems we all need to implement technology in the workplace.”

Curriculum & Schedule

The DCIP Certificate Program consists of three non-credit online courses. Participants must complete all three courses to receive a Certificate of Completion.

January 8 – February 16, 2024	Introduction to Digital Curation (6 weeks)	Mark Conrad
February 26 – May 17, 2024	Tools and Software for Digital Curation (12 weeks)	Mark Conrad
May 27 – August 16, 2024	Implementing Digital Curation in the Workplace (12 weeks)	Richard Marciano

Introduction to Digital Curation
In this 6-week introductory course, students will learn the principles for the design and implementation of long-term curation of digital data and information assets, including born-digital and digitized assets. Students will work to build a foundational framework for analyzing the technical, practical, ethical, economic, legal, social, and political factors affecting digital curation decisions.

Tools and Software for Digital Curation
This 12-week course provides ample hands-on experience in testing the application of digital curation principles in specific settings. Students will discuss the characteristics, representation, conversion, and preservation of digital objects, and work to plan for sustainability, risk mitigation, and disaster recovery. Multiple tools and software will be utilized throughout the course.

Implementing Digital Curation in the Workplace
This final 12-week capstone course provides students with an opportunity to understand the application of digital curation principles and techniques first-hand in an institutional program setting. Students who take this course will address one or more aspects of digital curation in their own organization through a project, focusing on an aspect of digital curation: design and implementation for long-term digital curation of a discrete collection; application of technologies and standards for digitization, description, and preservation of digital assets; or implementation of strategies to provide access to a digital collection.

Tuition

The total cost for all three courses is: $4010

Introduction to Digital Curation (6 weeks) – $1010
Tools and Software for Digital Curation (12 weeks) – $1500
Implementing Digital Curation in the Workplace (12 weeks) – $1500

Students register for courses individually. Those who complete all three will receive a certificate of completion.

Registration is now open! Please visit the College of Information Studies’ Open Learning page to register. The certificate consists of three courses. You can register for all three now if you would like, or register/pay before the first day of each course. Registration for the first course, Introduction to Digital Curation, will be open until the first day of class (January 8, 2024). Similarly, registration for Tools and Software will be open until February 26, 2024, and registration for Implementing Digital Curation will be open until May 27, 2024. Because the courses build on each other, you MUST successfully complete the Introduction to Digital Curation course to take Tools and Software.

There is no application process for this certificate. If you have concerns about the skills or background needed to be successful in these courses, please contact ischooldcip@umd.edu or the certificate’s Director, Dr. Richard Marciano (marciano@umd.edu). Please be aware that you will not have access to the course content until the course’s start date. These courses are online and asynchronous.

Examples of Student Projects

2023 Cohort

Synthetic Data and Generative AI: An Interactive Learning Experience
Digital Preservation and Legacy File Formats
Buried While Black– Payne Cemetery: The Disinterment of a HIstorically Black Cemetery in Washington, DC
Exploring Indexing Methods for Handwritten Text
Columbia MD Archives Digital Curation Manual: Balancing Legacy and Current Standards
Machine Learning at the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC)

2022 Cohort

A Data-Driven Approach to Reparative Description at the University of Chicago
MKULTRA: A Map of the CIA’s Medical Experiments and Torture
Processing Born-Digital Media in Archival Collections at the Archives of American Art
The Buildings That Shaped Us: A virtual tour through York House School building history

2021 Cohort

Old Data, New Data, New Perspectives: Enriching Historical Data [Urban Renewal in Asheville, NC, 1965-1980]
Global Morsel: Adventures of a Food Nomad [U.S. Farmers Markets]
From Obsolete to Accessible [Adding the LMLO to the Cntus Databases]
Re-Representing the Historical St. Anne’s Cemetery in Annapolis, MD
Henry Morgenthau Jr. Holocaust Index Project [Diary Databases & Jupyter Notebooks]
Adventures in Humanities Data [Curation with Digital El Diario]
Titanic Passenger List Project
Legacy of Slavery Runaway Ads

2020 Cohort

“Using Computational Methods to Create a Finding Aid for All Editions of the FDA’s Bacteriological Analytical Manual (BAM)”
“Artwork and Artifact Donation Metadata Project”
“Global Landslides Catalog – Using Data Cleanup and Visualization Software to Create a Tableau Story”
“FDR Morgenthau Collections Holocaust Collections”
“Data Story of the IMF COVID-19 Financial Assistance to Countries”
“Digital Curation for Federal Statistical Data”
“Creating a Web Archive for the Blogs of the Niels Bohr Library & Archives of the American Institute of Physics (AIP)”
“Digital Curation as Instructional Technology”
“Digital Systems Framework”
“Software Release Management Support for Electronic Health Records for the DoD and VA”
“Plotting the Past for St. Anne’s Cemetery in Annapolis, MD”

2019 Cohort

“Exploring Digital Curation Tools Using Fire Department Incident Data”
[Using three open-source digital curation tools: QGIS, Gephi OpenRefine]
“Data Lifecycle Management Driving the Data Lifecycle for Mission Advantage”
[Accountability for positively embracing and demonstrating the organization’s values, both individually and collectively]
“Audio file archive for a non-profit corporation”
[Non-profits often have financial constraints and rely upon volunteer labor. The archiving / curating workflows must be clearly articulated and delegated to the appropriate individuals or teams.]
“Digitization of Special Collections”
[Research Library Principles and Policy for Digital Content]
“Getting a Handle on Social Media Records Management”
[A Guide for Federal Agencies (Proof of Concept)]

2016/2017 Cohort

“Creating a General Procedure for Electronic Records Transfers”
[Topics: Maryland State Archives, e-transfers]
“Assessing Digital Curation and Preservation Readiness”
[Topics: Digital Preservation Capability Maturity Model]
”Visualizing MARC Data in a Graph Database: American Show Tunes 1940-1945″
[Topics: Graph database, MARC, Neo4j, NoSQL]
“Assessing the Usability of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Archival Description”
[Topics: OCR, Gate/Annie, OpenRefine, StanfordNLP, Python Regular Expressions]
“Keeping Electronic Records: A Long-Term Strategy for the National Institutes of Health”
[Topics: Policy, System planning, Access procedures]
“Adding Structured Data to the NLM Digital Repository to Enhance Search Results”
[Topics: Schema.org ontology, JSON-LD linked data, XSLT, MARCXML]

2015/2016 Cohort

“21st Century Online Exhibits: Recommendations for the NIST Virtual Museum”
[Topics: CONTENTdm, Google Cultural Institute, Omeka]
“Providing Access to Vice Presidential Digital Photographs”
[Topics: Review, description, and access to Presidential Records]
“Strategies for Managing and Visualizing Data Across Multiple Institutions”
[Topics: Metadata crosswalk, visualization]
“Improving Digital Preservation for the CHF’s Oral History Collection”
[Topics: Archivematica, Hydra, BagIt]
“File Appraisal Toolset (FAT): Summary, Analysis, Visualization”
[Topics: Data extraction, visual analytics]