Comments on: Understanding the Costs of Digitisation, JISC Report http://library.gameology.org/2010/01/21/understanding-the-costs-of-digitisation-jisc-report/ Chronicling work on the UF Digital Collections, SobekCM, & the Digital Humanities Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:07:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Simon Tanner http://library.gameology.org/2010/01/21/understanding-the-costs-of-digitisation-jisc-report/comment-page-1/#comment-2613 Simon Tanner Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:51:09 +0000 http://library.gameology.org/?p=647#comment-2613 I think the volume of Overhead shown in their report is a little bit of a red herring. It merely was the dumping ground for any costs which did not comfortably fit into the other categories. So, for instance, the LBC/IRN overheads figure include significant amounts paid to me for consultancy for their EU tendering process and outsourced rekeying of catalogue cards. There was also another consultant who did metadata advice to this project. These don't seem to be overheads to me! I think the report would have benefitted from a wider coverage of projects, plus a more robust and closer look at the finances of those projects it did look at. My sense is that the quote "attempting to compare these two projects quantitatively is unhelpful" is not a statement of fact but a statement of the consultants inability to do that task meaningfully... It has managed to come up with results that are both unsuprising and yet possibly misleading at the same time. I think the volume of Overhead shown in their report is a little bit of a red herring. It merely was the dumping ground for any costs which did not comfortably fit into the other categories.

So, for instance, the LBC/IRN overheads figure include significant amounts paid to me for consultancy for their EU tendering process and outsourced rekeying of catalogue cards. There was also another consultant who did metadata advice to this project.

These don’t seem to be overheads to me! I think the report would have benefitted from a wider coverage of projects, plus a more robust and closer look at the finances of those projects it did look at. My sense is that the quote “attempting to compare these two projects quantitatively is unhelpful” is not a statement of fact but a statement of the consultants inability to do that task meaningfully…

It has managed to come up with results that are both unsuprising and yet possibly misleading at the same time.

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