Preparing the Workforce for Digital Curation (2015) / Chapter Skim
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Chapter 3 Current and Future Demand for a Digital Curation Workforce
Chapter 3 Current and Future Demand for a Digital Curation Workforce
Pages 47-62
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From page 47... ...
This chapter explores trends in current and future demand and then considers some factors that may affect future demand, particularly automation. 3.1 Difficulties in Estimating Current Demand Tracking current demand for the workforce in digital curation is difficult for three reasons.
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From page 48... ...
Unfortunately, none of the jobs in the BLS Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) is titled "Digital Curation." This may change as the SOC is revised.
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From page 49... ...
As expected, some traditional computer and mathematical occupations have many more job openings than those in most job titles related to digital curation. Yet, despite their small absolute size, most job openings related to digital curation have been growing much more rapidly than the openings for computer and mathematical occupations.
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From page 50... ...
The librarian occupation experienced no growth, although tasks requiring digital curation expertise may nonetheless have increased within that occupation. Despite the rapid growth in job openings related to digital curation, most of these occupations have had few openings recently.
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CURRENT AND FUTURE DEMAND FOR A DIGITAL CURATION WORKFORCE 51 Figure 3-1 Job openings containing a "digital curator" job title, 2005 to 2012. Percentage of job openings found by Indeed.com that contain the term "digital curator." SOURCE: Indeed.com (2012)
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From page 52... ...
Figure 3-3 summarizes these parameters for a collection of 30 terms related to digital curation in one logarithmic chart. The arrow colors relate to the trend -- green indicates a substantial upward trend, yellow a flat or more gradual change, and red indicates a significant downward trend.
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From page 53... ...
The ease with which these recent graduates are placed in jobs and the initial trajectories of their careers provide indirect indicators of current market demand. The trends revealed by these indirect indicators are consistent with the trends presented above using data on job openings.
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From page 54... ...
The more than 50 position titles are suggestive of how curation jobs are being formalized, ranging from data curator, data management consultant, research data librarian, and digital preservation librarian to data analyst, digital asset manager, and information architect (Palmer et al., 2014)
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From page 55... ...
BLS makes occupational projections for over 700 job categories and 300 industries every 2 years, for the upcoming 10 years. As discussed in Section 3.1, none of the jobs in the BLS SOC is titled "Digital Curation." As a result, future demand for the digital curation workforce can only be approximated by examining employment projections for computer occupations and a few other occupations that are strongly related to digital curation.
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From page 56... ...
2011 ($) Computer and mathematical occupations Computer support specialists 607.1 18.1 110.0 47,660 Computer systems analysts 544.4 22.1 120.4 78,770 Software developers, applications 520.8 27.6 143.8 89,280 Software developers, systems 392.3 32.4 127.2 96,600 software Computer programmers 363.1 12.0 43.7 72,630 Network and computer systems 347.2 27.8 96.6 70,970 administrators Computer and information 307.9 18.1 55.8 118,010 systems managers Information security specialists,web developers, and computer 302.3 21.7 65.7 77,970 N network architects Database administrators 110.8 30.6 33.9 75,190
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From page 57... ...
They also have higher median wages than the aggregate of all occupations. Table 3.3 presents BLS projections for the various categories of computer and mathematical occupations, many of which may incorporate digital curation functions, as well as for librarians and archivists.
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From page 58... ...
Because of the volume of metadata needed, the costs of its manual creation, and both the feasibility and appeal of automated metadata creation, this is a very likely area for further automation in digital curation. As digital curation becomes more systematized, with the emergence of standards, software, workflows, and other tools that reduce the need for human manual effort, other curatorial tasks are increasingly automated.
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From page 59... ...
Most efforts at automating digital curation to date have focused on either building automated digital curation workflows for business and research processes or for repository functions, but not both. As studies based on the KRDS model discussed above show, the largest expense for repositories are the processes of acquisition and ingestion.
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From page 60... ...
Conclusion 3.2: Although digital curation is not currently recognized by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its Standard Occupational Classification, other sources of employment data identify the emergence and rapid rise of digital curation and associated job skills. Conclusion 3.3: There is a paucity of data on the production of trained digital curation professionals and their career paths.
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From page 61... ...
Recommendation 3.2: Government agencies, private employers, and professional associations should also undertake a concerted effort to monitor the demand for digital curation knowledge and skills in positions that are primarily focused on other activities but include some curation tasks. The Office of Personnel Management should issue guidelines for specifying digital curation knowledge and skills that should be included in federal government position descriptions and job announcements.
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From page 62... ...
2014. "Standard Occupational Classification (SOC)
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