The CULTURA Project: Supporting Next Generation Interaction with Digital Cultural Heritage Collections.
C. Hampson, M. Agosti, N. Orio, E. Bailey, S. Lawless, O. Conlan, V. Wade
In: Ioannides, Marinos and Fritsch, Dieter and Leissner, Johanna and Davies, Rob and Remondino, Fabio and Caffo, Rossella(Eds), Progress in Cultural Heritage Preservation, LNCS Vol. 7616, Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg, 2012, pp. 668-675.
Abstract:In recent years there has been a marked uptake in the digitisation of cultural heritage collections. Though this has enabled more sources to be made available to experts and the wider public, curators still struggle to instigate and enhance engagement with cultural archives. This is largely due to the monolithic nature of many digital archives; the challenge of understanding large collections, especially if the language is inconsistent; and because users vary in expertise and have different tasks and goals that they are trying to accomplish. This paper describes CULTURA, an FP7 funded project that is addressing these specific issues. The various technologies and approaches being used by CULTURA are discussed, along with the lessons learnt thus far.
User Needs for Enhanced Engagement with Cultural Heritage Collections.
M. Sweetnam, M. Agosti, N. Orio, C. Ponchia, C. Steiner, E. Hillemann, M. O'Siochru, S. Lawless
In: Zaphiris, Panayiotis and Buchanan, George and Rasmussen, Edie and Loizides, Fernando(Eds), Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, LNCS Vol. 7489, Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg, 2012, pp. 64-75.
Abstract:This paper presents research carried out in order to elicit user needs for the design and development of a digital library and research platform intended to enhance user engagement with cultural heritage collections. It outlines a range of user constituencies for this digital library. The paper outlines a taxonomy of intended users for this system and describes in detail the characteristics and requirements of these users for the facilitation and enhancement of their engagement with and use of textual and visual cultural artefacts.
A Case Study for the Development of Methods to Improve User Engagement with Digital Cultural Heritage Collections.
M. Agosti, G. Mariani Canova, N. Orio, C. Ponchia
In: C. Grana, R. Cucchiara (Eds), Multimedia for Cultural Heritage, CCIS Vol. 247, Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, 2012, pp.166-175.
Abstract:The aim of this paper is to report the results of an ongoing project that deals with the exploitation of a digital archive of drawings and illustrations of historic documents for research and educational purposes. A prototype system, called IPSA (Imaginum Patavinae Scientiae Archivum), has been developed and is currently used as a case study to provide innovative tools for researchers and scholars active in the preservation and dissemination of cultural heritage. After describing the initial user requirements that motivated the development of IPSA, we focus on the research questions that can be addressed by new system functions and on its extension to additional user groups, including students, experts in other domains, and the general public.
To Envisage and Design the Transition from a Digital Archive System Developed for Domain Experts to one for Non-domain Users.
M. Agosti, N. Orio
In the Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2012), Washington DC June 10–14 2012, New York, 2012, pp. 11-14.
Abstract:Diverse digital resources are commonly used by different types of users. It is common practice to develop those application having in mind a set of requirements for a specific target category of users. We envisaged and designed the IPSA archive and system using a similar approach: the identification of a set of requirements for researchers in illuminated manuscripts as a target group of domain professional users. The IPSA system has been in use as a research tool by domain professionals. The consideration that the content of the archive managed by the IPSA system could be of interest for other types of users suggested reconsidering its approach to envisage a new system designed around the same archive of illuminated manuscripts for their access by diverse categories of users. The paper reports on the work that was conducted to re-design and re-engineer the system to match requirements and expectations of non-domain users.
Informal presentation at a Turing centenary conference CiE 2012 - How the World Computes, University of Cambridge, 18 June – 23 June 2012.
Abstract:The digitisation of historical texts provides an access to a huge amount of the human knowledge and experience of our ancestors. However the spelling variations and the lack of norms make it difficult for practical usage, e.g. information retrieval and information extraction. The comprehension is also hindered for non-experts. In this talk we address the problem of normalisation of historical texts.
A. Nussbaumer, E. Hillemann, C. Steiner, and D. Albert
In: Zaphiris, Panayiotis and Buchanan, George and Rasmussen, Edie and Loizides, Fernando(Eds), Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, LNCS Vol. 7489, Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg, 2012, pp. 414-419.
Abstract:Evaluation is an important task for digital libraries, because it reveals relevant information about their quality. This paper presents a conceptual and technical approach to support the systematic evaluation of digital libraries in three ways and a system is presented that assists during the entire evaluation process. First, it allows for formally modelling the evaluation goals and designing the evaluation process. Second, it allows for data collection in a continuous and non-continuous, invasive and non-invasive way. Third, it automatically creates reports based on the defined evaluation models. On the basis of an example evaluation it is outlined how the evaluation process can be designed and supported with this system.
Issues to Be Addressed for Transforming a Digital Library Application for Experts into one for Final Users.
M. Agosti, L. Benfante, M. Manfioletti, N. Orio, C. Ponchia
In: M. Ioannides, D. Fritsch, J. Leissner, R. David, F. Remondino and R. Caffo (Eds.), Euromed 2012, 4th International Conference, Progress in Cultural Heritage Preservation, Short Papers, Multi-Science Publishing Co Ltd, Brentwood, UK, 2012, pp. 89-94.
Abstract:This paper reports on the effort we made in adapting and opening a specialist tool, focused on illumination and designed purposely for scholars and researchers, in order to be suitable also for the general public. We describe the ongoing process we are conducting: the adaptation and the improvement of the IPSA digital archive using the results we collected after several sessions of user interviews, following suggestions of both scholars and simple users. We discuss user studies dynamics, that we consider as a loop- interaction, and the consequences that they entail upon the system design.
CULTURA: Supporting Enhanced Exploration of Cultural Archives through Personalisation.
E. Bailey, S. Lawless, A. O'Connor, M. Sweetnam, O. Conlan, C. Hampson, V. Wade.
In the Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Humanities, Society and Culture, ICHSC 2012, Hong Kong, China. October 27th-28th, 2012.
Abstract:A key challenge facing curators and providers of digital cultural heritage across Europe and Worldwide is to instigate, increase and enhance engagement with cultural archives. To achieve this, a fundamental change in the way cultural resources are experienced and contributed to by communities is required. Furthermore, it is of central importance to create systems which can support the full spectrum of the user community - from professional researchers engaged in answering complex queries, to supporting novice students or members of the public in finding their way through the vast collection of resources. This paper presents CULTURA, a personalisation environment for navigating digitised cultural heritage archives. An initial description of a case study surrounding the 1641 Depositions Archive is followed by an analysis of the results of trials with students in the humanities.
CULTURA: A Metadata-Rich Environment to Support the Enhanced Interrogation of Cultural Collections.
C. Hampson, S. Lawless, E. Bailey, S. Yogev, N. Zwerdling, D. Carmel, V. Wade.
In the proceedings of the 6th Research Conference, MTSR 2012, Cádiz, Spain, November 28-30, 2012, Metadata and Semantics Research, CCIS vol. 343,Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, 2012, pp. 227-238
Abstract:The increased digitisation of cultural collections, and their availability on the World Wide Web, has made access to these valuable documents much easier than ever before. However, despite the increased availability of access to cultural archives, curators still struggle to instigate and enhance engagement with these resources. The CULTURA project is actively addressing this issue through the development of a metadata-driven personalisation environment for navigating cultural collections and instigating collaborations. The corpus agnostic CULTURA environment also supports a full spectrum of users: ranging from professional researchers seeking patterns in the data and trying to answer complex queries; to interested members of the public who need help navigating a vast collection of resources. This paper discusses the state of the art in this area and the various innovative approaches used in the CULTURA project, with a special focus on how the underlying metadata helps facilitate its semantically rich environment.
