Omeka is a user-friendly web publishing platform designed specifically for scholarly and cultural heritage content. Fondren Library is offering access to a locally administered Omeka instance. The Fondren Omeka program is managed by the Digital Scholarship Services (DSS) group. To request an account or consultation, please send inquiries to cds@rice.edu or submit a request.
Eligibility
This service is available to Rice faculty, students and staff. Any member of the Rice community with a @rice.edu email address can request an Omeka account to be used for a research or educational project. Students are required to have a faculty sponsor for their project. Fondren Library reserves the right to decline to host projects that aren’t consistent with our policies or are out of scope. Please note that this is a new, evolving service.
Features and Defaults
This service will provide up to 1 GB of storage per project (subject to change based on demand, as we need to balance campus-wide needs). For larger storage needs, please contact cds@rice.edu. DSS cannot customize your Omeka site, although you may use established Omeka themes or plug-ins to tailor your site to your needs.
DSS technical support includes:
- Providing an unique URL address for your project. The domain name is http://digitalprojects.rice.edu/ and users can select their own subdomain name.
- Installing any requested Omeka themes or plug-ins.
- Help getting started, including offering workshops or individual training and consultation on digital curation best practices.
- Assistance in pulling images and metadata from the Rice University’s Digital Scholarship Archive (RDSA) or Rice’s Shared Shelf Commons collection.
- Resolving basic technical issues (e.g. assistance resetting passwords, migration from older Omeka sites, maintenance and software upgrades).
- Omeka sites may be archived using the Archive-It web archiving solution hosted at the Internet Archive upon request.
Technical support does not include specialized web design or customization outside of the established Omeka themes and plug-ins.
Responsibility for Content
Those who establish collections or exhibits using Fondren’s Omeka service must agree to abide by the following terms.
- A curator must be designated for each project / exhibit, and curators are solely responsible for the content of their exhibits.
- All Omeka projects must eventually be made public.
- Content must be free of copyright issues (that is, it is in the public domain or distributed under a Creative Commons license, or permissions have been obtained). The curator is responsible for addressing any issues that may arise regarding content or copyright.
- Because the storage capacity of the Fondren Omeka instance is limited to a finite amount of file space to be shared across all Rice University users, it is expected that materials chosen for inclusion in any Omeka project will be Web quality and will NOT include high-resolution materials. Storage of up to 1GB per project is provided (subject to change).
- Curators are responsible for reviewing their own exhibits at least once a year, or following a major Omeka upgrade. The DSS group will notify all curators when a major Omeka upgrade occurs. Any problems found during review must be addressed by the curator.
- If a curator leaves Rice University, he or she must designate another person from the sponsoring department to manage the exhibit going forward.
- Projects that appear to be abandoned (e.g. dormant and non-published) may be deactivated at the discretion of the DSS group. The DSS group will not remove any project without first attempting to contact the exhibit curator.
- Curators are expected to respect the rights of others by complying with all University policies regarding sexual, racial and other forms of harassment, and by preserving the privacy of personal data to which you have access. Any Library-hosted Omeka site that violates these terms will be deactivated immediately upon notification of the violations.
- Omeka is not intended to be a long-term preservation platform; curators are responsible for maintaining any high resolution digital media (images, audio/video files) related to their exhibits. Those seeking preservation should use the Rice University’s Digital Scholarship Archive (RDSA).
To request an Omeka account, please fill out this Request Form .
Questions regarding this service should be directed to cds@rice.edu.
Attribution
Some content on this page is based on
Getting Started – Omeka Online Exhibitions – LibGuides at Yale University
Digital Humanities – Omeka – UIUC
Baylor University Libraries | Digital Projects Group || DPG Policies
