Building Digital Exhibits with Omeka.net
Omeka sites are made up of items, collections, and exhibits.
An item is the basic unit of an Omeka site. Items are records which can be attached to a file (jpeg, mp4, pdf, etc).
Omeka also allows you to add metadata to each item. Metadata is information about an item such as title, author, publisher, date, etc. Omeka.net uses the Dublin Core metadata schema which is easy to modify. Metadata makes the items on your website searachable. Omeka provides the fields for you to enter the information. Feel free to modify but try and stay consistent.
Collections are useful for grouping or organizing items. You can link between items in different collections using tags. Tags allow you to link items together with terms of your choosing. When any two items have the same tag, the tag automatically turns into a link. Omeka sites allow you to browse items by tag.
Items do not have to be in collections, but once an item is in a collection, it can’t be in any other collection.
An exhibit is the process of carefully choosing items and arranging them to create a narrative or story using different layouts and additional text. Even with Omeka.net, you have the ability to modify how you arrange your exhibit.
Privacy
Please note that Omeka stores its data in Virginia, United States. If you are asking students to create exhibits using Omeka, students should be made aware of this and given the option to make their work anonymous or to sign up without using personally identifying information. For more information on UBC privacy facts, read the Privacy Fact Sheet on Collecting Personal Information.
Remember, students at UBC own their intellectual property so they have the right to refuse openly licensing their work. It’s necessary to communicate the risks and value of working in the open and/or public with your students. Librarians can help you with that!
Accessibility
Accessibility is important. There are steps you can take to make sure you are making the exhibit as accessible as possible. For example, if you are uploading multimedia content such as videos or sound clips, make sure you have included a transcription. When uploading images to websites, you should include alt-text. Alt-text provides a description of an image that can be read by a screen reader. Unfortunately, Omeka.net does not provide a function to add alt-text to items that have image files. If you are highlighting the image in an exhibit, you may want to add a caption which describes the image. Likewise, if you are uploading a sound file or video file, it should be accompanied by a transcript.