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ACA Workshops

Upcoming events

    • 28 Jun 2023
    • 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ADT)
    • In-Person Delta PEI, Charlottetown and online via Zoom
    • 7
    Register

    ACA 2023: Belonging - Considering archival bonds and disconnects

    Introduction to Archival Digital Accessibility

    Pre-Conference Workshop

    Today, more than ever before, those who work with archival digital materials rely on websites, images, PDF documents, audio, and video, to connect with researchers and the public.

    Lowering barriers to make digital materials more accessible is crucial for the one out of five Canadians, who identify as having disabilities. As well, some of the 1.3 billion people worldwide may also be using Canadian archival digital materials.

    There is also provincial and Federal accessibility and human rights legislation across Canada that may require many of us working with archival digital materials, to identify and lower barriers for people with disabilities.

    Lowering barriers makes access easier and more inclusive, and provides a sense of belonging for those of us who have disabilities.


    In this workshop, learn the basics on how to start identifying and lowering barriers. The first part of the workshop will focus on 'why' digital accessibility is important for people with disabilities, and what legislation may apply to your work. This will include information on who may be accessing your digital materials, and what technologies may be used. There will be one or two live demonstrations of some popular technologies.

    The second part of the workshop will focus on the basics of the 'what' and 'how'. You will learn practical tips that can be used right away, to help make digital materials more accessible and inclusive. The workshop is geared to a beginner and intermediate audience. No technical expertise is required, just have an interest in the subject.

    What You Will Learn:

    • How digital barriers impact people with a wide range of disabilities.
    • The basics of accessibility and human rights legislation in Canada, and how it may impact your work with archival digital materials.
    • What kinds of software and hardware people may use to access your archival digital materials, with at least one live demonstration.
    • Practical tips, and some tools, to help you to start identifying and removing barriers to make your archival digital materials more accessible.
    • Hands-on exercises to practice some of the tips, so you can apply your knowledge right away to identify and lower barriers in your digital materials.

    Outline  

    • Introductions-10 minutes
    • Part 1: Different disabilities, legislation, technologies with live demo- 40 minutes
    • Part 1 Interaction: Questions will be asked about each area, so some discussion will take place.
    • Break-10 minutes
    • Part 2: Practical Tips-50 minutes
    • Part 2 Interaction: In each tip area, examples will be shown, we will work through them, and solo, or group, exercises will be provided for most tip areas.
    • Question Period-10 minutes
    • Question Period Interaction: Attendees will ask questions, and discussion will take place.
    Please note: This workshop will take place in person and using Zoom. The session will be recorded and accessible for 7 (days) to participants.

    Costs: 

    ACA Members: $ 50.00

    Non-Members: $ 75.00

    ACA Members - students / precariously employed: $25.00

    ACA Members - subsidized: $ 0 (please reach out to the ACA Secretariat for the application).

    Workshop Facilitator:

    Lisa Snider is CNSA MemoryNS Support Specialist and AABC MemoryBC Coordinator. She is a digital archivist, and since 2010, has worked with digital and hybrid collections in North America, including at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Lisa's passion in life is working with website, document, audio, video, and social media accessibility. She shares her knowledge with others to lower barriers, and make digital materials more accessible for people with different disabilities. Lisa has worked with, and helped create, accessibility legislation across Canada. She has worked with digital accessibility since 1999, and collaborates with Microsoft to improve their product accessibility.

    Head shot, workshop facilitator, Lisa Snider.

    • 28 Jun 2023
    • 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (ADT)
    • In-Person Delta PEI, Charlottetown and online via Zoom
    • 13
    Register

    ACA 2023: Belonging - Considering archival bonds and disconnects

    Pre-Conference Workshop: Quill Work on Birch Bark


    Pre-Conference Workshop: Quill Work on Birch Bark

    Quill work is an ancient artwork that inspired the Mi’kmaq, or the porcupine people, to create such beautiful pieces of art that are now kept in museums all over the world for their beauty and timeless creativity. In this experience you will be able to work with a skilled artisan and create your own decorative birch bark circle to take home with you while learning about the rich and beautiful history of the Mi’kmaq on PEI.

    This art form has been passed down from generation to generation and now it is your time to learn this amazing skill.

     

    Workshop Details:

    Date: Wednesday, June 28, 2023

    Time: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm AT.

    Location: This workshop will take place at the Delta, PEI, the room location will be emailed to attendees in advance of the workshop.

     

    The capacity for the workshop is 25 participants.

     

    Costs: 

    ACA Members: $75

    Non-Members: $85

    ACA Members - students / precariously employed: $50


    • 28 Jun 2023
    • 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM (ADT)
    • In-Person Delta PEI, Charlottetown
    • 38
    Register

    ACA 2023 - Belonging - Considering archival bonds and disconnects

    Pre-Conference Workshop

    “Artificial Intelligence and Archives: the I Trust AI Research Project.”


    When: June 28, 2023, Delta PEI Charlottetown

    Time: 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM AT

    Capacity: 50 participants

    The ongoing availability, accessibility, and trustworthiness of public records is under threat, due to sociotechnical changes that have left our public institutions staggering under an overwhelming abundance, complexity, and lack of control of records. Without automated means of processing, we will increasingly lose control of public records, and ultimately, the public will lose trust in archives. However, implementing automated solutions - especially Artificial Intelligence solutions - raises a whole new set of costs and risks, from the expenses involved in implementing systems, to the risks of privacy breach, bias and discrimination, and loss of discretion.

    This workshop will explain the fundamental ideas on which AI is based, discuss types of AI tools available, and identify both the advantages and issues presented by their use on records and archives. It will then outline the way the new InterPARES project, I Trust AI, aims to determine how the records and archives community can develop its own AI tools based on archival principles, and leverage them to support society's demand for trustworthy public records. Finally, it will present some of the studies that are being carried out by the I Trust AI researchers, and their outcomes to date, and will involve the workshop participants in the analysis and discussion of such outcomes.

    Outline:
    • Muhammad Abdul Mageed and Peter Sullivan will explain types of AI systems and tools.
    • Luciana Duranti will present what kind of tools are needed by the profession vs those that have been used to date, and the reasons why the 5th phase of the InterPARES project will be necessary.
    • Corinne Rogers will discuss the structure of the I Trust AI project and, with Peter Sullivan, provide an overview of the studies in progress
    • Tracey Lauriault will discuss two I Trust AI case studies about the preservation of digital twins and smart grids
    • The participants will be divided in 4 groups, each chaired by one of the speakers, to discuss the studies and propose additional studies
    • The participants will rejoin to discuss the new proposals

    Learning Outcomes

    The participants will learn to:

    • recognize different types of AI tools
    • identify the type of tool needed for different archival functions and activities
    • assess the conditions required for the use of AI tools (e.g. amount of terabytes of digitized material)
    • understand what is feasible and what is not
    • learn what current research is being done on the use of AI in archives
    Workshop Instructors

    Muhammad Abdul-Mageed is Canada Research Chair in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning. His research focuses on deep representation learning and natural language socio-pragmatics, with two main goals: (1) development of `social’ machines for improved human health, safer social networking, and reduced information overload; and (2) use of machine learning as a vehicle for making discoveries with and about human language. He is currently leading several funded projects, including InterPARES Trust AI, and has been funded by SSHRC, NSERC, CFI, Google, Amazon, AMD, among others.

    Luciana Duranti is a Professor at the UBC School of Information, where she teaches archival diplomatics, appraisal, preservation of digital records, and history of recordkeeping. Her research aims to find solutions to digital record issues that can be universally applied. Since 1998, she has been the Director of InterPARES (International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems), a multi-national and multi-disciplinary research project studying the long-term preservation of authentic electronic records, which is now in its 5th phase. She has been the lead investigator also for other SSHRC-funded projects, such as Records in the Clouds and Digital Records Forensics.

    Corinne Rogers is the Project Coordinator for InterPARES Trust AI (UBC, 2021-2026), a multidisciplinary, international partnership researching the uses and applicability of Artificial Intelligence in archival workflows to ensure trust and trustworthiness of records and data. She is an adjunct professor in the UBC School of Information, where she teaches diplomatics and digital preservation.  She was most recently a Systems Archivist at Artefactual Systems, lead developers and organizational home to open source projects for digital preservation, AccessToMemory (AtoM) and Archivematica.

    Peter Sullivan is a Graduate Academic Assistant working under Luciana and Muhammad. His research focuses on Speech Processing, particularly Automatic Speech Recognition and classification (State Detection, Language and Dialect ID). Prior to returning to academia, he was a high-school Computer Science teacher, and brings with him his passion for demystifying complex technologies.

    Tracey P. Lauriault
    is Associate Professor, Critical Media and Big Data, School of Journalism and Communications, Cross Appointed to Digital Humanities, and board member of the Institute for Data Science at Carleton University in Canada. She a founder of the field critical data studies, open data and Open Smart Cities. As a data and technological citizen, she examines large and small data and technology systems to make them more just, inclusive, equitable and environmentally sustainable. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1847-2738



Past workshops

29 Mar 2023 Ancestry “Lunch & Learn”: Handwriting Recognition - The Future of Indexing
22 Feb 2023 “Implementing a Trauma-Informed Approach to Archives” Workshop
24 Nov 2022 Description and Access for Anti-Black Archival Materials
23 Nov 2022 The Reconciliation Framework: Presentation and Q & A
9 Nov 2022 “Implementing a Trauma-Informed Approach to Archives” Workshop
2 Nov 2022 Building your institution’s archival processing checklist for digital records
6 Oct 2022 “Implementing a Trauma-Informed Approach to Archives” Workshop
4 Oct 2022 Web Archiving for Beginners
23 Jun 2022 “Implementing a Trauma-Informed Approach to Archives” Workshop
14 Jun 2022 ACA 2022 Pre-Conference Workshop: "Every Last Byte: Making the Most of Access Copies in Archives"
8 Jun 2022 Kairos Virtual Blanket Exercise
7 Jun 2022 The First Nations Principles of OCAP – First Nations Information Governance Centre
1 Jun 2022 Advertising, Sponsorship and Support - ACA 2022 @UBC
27 Apr 2022 Working with Archival Texts as Data – Using Natural Language Processing to Support the Description of Digital Archives
15 Apr 2022 Working with Archival Texts as Data – Post-OCR Error Correction with OpenRefine
15 Dec 2021 Deadline Extended: December 15, 2021: Call for Workshops - 2022 - ACA PDC
10 Dec 2021 New Date: Description and Access for Anti-Black Archival Materials
24 Nov 2021 Advanced Workshop - Creating Online Exhibits for Digital Collections
17 Nov 2021 Making Movies for Archivists
10 Nov 2021 Creating Online Exhibits for Digital Collections
4 Nov 2021 International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF): what is it and why should my archives adopt it?
6 Oct 2021 Information Governance for Archivists
29 Sep 2021 Conjuring the Spirits of Success - Heritage Wins the Day
22 Sep 2021 Intimate Records
9 Jun 2021 Incorporating Indigenous Ways in Archival Policy and Procedure Development - Panel Discussion with Yukon Presenters: ACA 2021 Pre-Conference Workshop
8 Jun 2021 Description and Access for Anti-Black Archival Materials: ACA 2021 Pre-Conference Workshop
7 Jun 2021 Digital File Transfer App and the National Accession Standard: ACA 2021 Pre-Conference Workshop
7 Jun 2021 ACA 2021 Virtual Conference: Home Improvement
18 May 2021 Working with Archival Texts as Data – Using Natural Language Processing to Support the Description of Digital Archives
11 May 2021 Working with Archival Texts as Data – Post-OCR Error Correction with OpenRefine
12 Apr 2021 UCASIS - Navigating Wikidata and Archival Description in Canada - A Panel Discussion
20 Feb 2021 Legal Issues in Archival Donations
28 Nov 2020 Advanced Workshop - Creating Online Exhibits for Digital Collections
24 Oct 2020 Creating Online Exhibits for Digital Collections
5 Oct 2020 Wikidata: WikiProject Archival Descriptions
28 Sep 2020 Resume workshop for new information professionals
24 Sep 2020 Creating Online Exhibits for Digital Collections
24 Aug 2020 Creating Online Exhibits for Digital Collections
22 Jun 2020 Creating Online Exhibits for Digital Collections
8 Jun 2020 Wikidata: WikiProject Archival Descriptions

Past Conference Workshops


ACA 2019:  Archival Origins


ACA 2006: Living on the Edge

June 26, 2006  Full Day

Law and Original Order: Legal Aspects of Archive

June 27, 2006 Full Day

Just Scan It All! Making Archival Holdings Available Online

June 27, 2006 Half day

CCA Awareness Kit 

ACA 2018:  Trust in Technology

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