What makes a digital steward: A competency profile based on the National Digital Stewardship Residencies

Abstract

Digital stewardship is the active and long-term management of digital objects towards their preservation for and unencumbered access by future generations. Although the field is rapidly maturing, it still lacks a comprehensive competency profile for practitioners. This is due in part to the relative youth of the field, and to the fact that being an effective steward of digital materials requires highly specialized training that is best acquired through hands-on work. Given the key role that competency profiles play in the design of curricula and job postings, the lack of one hinders the training and education of professionals for these positions. This paper provides a profile of the skills, responsibilities, and knowledge areas that define competency in digital stewardship, based on a close study of the projects undertaken in the National Digital Stewardship Residency program (NDSR). The authors use a triangulated research methodology in order to define the scope of the profile, qualitatively analyze the competencies articulated among NDSR project descriptions, and quantitatively evaluate those competencies' importance to professional success. The profile that results from this research has implications for current and future digital stewards: training designed with this profile as its basis will focus on the skills most needed to be an effective digital steward, and therefore can guide both graduate and professional development curricula alike.

Cultivating Digitization Competencies

“…In their study of projects undertaken in the National Digital Stewardship Residency program (NDSR), Blumenthal et al found that project management skills and technical skills (including metadata, workflow enhancement/development, digital asset management, and digitization) were important. 6 The level of required technical competency tended to vary by project but workflow enhancement stood out as a universally important skill. A 2019 analysis of the latest career trends for information professionals by San Jose State University's (SJSU) iSchool noted that there is increasing demand for project management skills across all career types.…”