8. Evaluate
Ongoing evaluation must be a key element of your Open Access program. Once it has successfully launched, schedule time to review what worked and what did not work, and to document unexpected challenges. Review your original goals in light of your experience and refine them for the future.
Finally, do not keep that evaluation to yourself. The Open Access community embraces openness beyond collections. Sharing your lessons will help guide colleagues at other institutions, and may help you uncover new solutions. The solutions you developed can become best practices for others struggling with the same challenges. Public online dashboards can show boards, leadership, open access advocates, peers, and the public that open access is a beneficial and mission-serving investment of institutional resources.
9. Join The Community
Open Access for 3D collections is experiencing a formative moment. It has the benefit of building on the accumulated knowledge of 2D digitization and the broader Open Access community. A handful of leaders have begun to blaze a trail forward to help define what Open Access can mean for 3D cultural objects.
At the same time, technology and best practices are rapidly evolving. Today’s best practice will be surpassed by better techniques. Technology will become less expensive and easier to use. The community will grow. Embrace this inevitability by sharing practices and learning together.
All of these factors combine to create an opportunity to help define what it means to build a successful Open Access 3D program. What uses make sense? What files are best? Where should you look for partnerships? These are questions we are working together to answer.
This resource was created at a moment in late 2019 and early 2020 to help bring together the current best answers to those questions. We hope it will be useful to you and the larger community, and that you will help evolve it with us.
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