Introduction EuropeanaConnect All-Staff Meeting Berlin, May 10 12, 2010
Welcome to the All-Staff Meeting!
Introduction This is a quite big meeting. This is the end of successful project year Project established as largest single Europeana technology provider Goals of the All-Staff Meeting: Get up-to-date about the different strands of work Open the work silos and profit from synergies
Meeting structure Plenary sessions Update on achievements in all work packages Demonstrations of project results Updates on Europeana and sync with Europeana developments Administrative issues Dissemination and project marketing Parallel sessions All-Developers meetings Work packages meetings Inter-WP meetings for synchronisation
Looking foward to three productive and pleasant days!
Status of EuropeanaConnect EuropeanaConnect All-Staff Meeting Berlin, May 10 12, 2010
A unusual project EuropeanaConnect is a unusual European project: We don't only have to deliver according to our Description of Work But also according to the release planning and requirements of Europeana In the end: we will be measured for our success in delivering sustainable products for Europeana This is what will remain from the project (hopefully ) In contrast to many other projects, most EuropeanaConnect deliverables are not prototypes but should be production-ready components Requires a very different project culture and a different approach to planning!
Rhine and Danube
Complexity and synchronisation Main challenge in year 1: Synchronise the project with the requirements and planning of Europeana Europeana Techical Requirements: Use cases Coding requirements Development environment Release schedule Europeana Business and Policy Requirements: Branding and marketing Data Provider Agreements (Licensing Framework) User Generated Content Policy (Annotations) User Testing
http://www.armypictorialcenter.com/the_big_picture.htm
Key Objectives of EuropeanaConnect 1. Provide a critical mass of audio content to Europeana and implement an audio-enabling infrastructure 2. Build the Semantic Layer for Europeana 3. Facilitate multilingual access to Europeana 4. Develop novel access channels to Europeana (like mobile access) 5. Provide tools and methodologies for user-driven development and for testing and evaluation 6. Build value-added services (like e-books-on-demand) 7. Implement key infrastructure components (like OAI-PMH infrastructure) 8. Build the Europeana Licensing Framework 9. Enable stronger and wider collaborative networking
Achievements in Year 1 http://static.open.salon.com/files/applause1234363884.gif
Add the music dimension to Europeana
New audio content for Europeana EuropeanaConnect will add the music dimension to Europeana WP6, lead by RBB Five audio archives are consortium members Continuous approach to involvement of new audio archives for the entire duration of the project
Main strands of work / Highlights 1 Europeana Audio Aggregation Platform (AAP) Based on already existing DISMARC portal and infrastructure Used for harvesting, analysing and storing audio metadata Mapping adjusted, improved connectivity and more storage space on server (used by audio content providers) New audio integrated by upload and by links into the AAP Data provision for Europeana using OAI-PMH How to start? Audio Starter Kit on EuropeanaConnect Website http:///results-and-resources.php Describes process of providing audio content to Europeana via the AAP
Main strands of work / Highlights 2 Already 41.000 items aggregated from 100 collections in 16 countries Most items already available via Europeana Estimated 150.000 200.000 music tracks by project end Continuous dissemination, Newsletters, personal contacts etc. Targeting at and in contact with more than 300 potential partners
Challenges / Next Steps Challenges: Uncertainty about IPR issues underlying most communications Approached by delivering necessary information Audio archives extremely hesitant towards joint operations Answered by various activities Only now Europeana Data Provider Agreement available Next steps: Workshop in September Active newsletter publishing Handbook for content owners under preparation Work with the provider agreement
Building the Semantic Layer
Build the Europeana Semantic Layer WP1, lead by HUB Organise Europeana data space as network of interlinked resources for object discovery and further use Prerequisite for integration of and with other semantically aware WWW services Build a repository of harvested semantic resources Vocabularies, classification schemes Convert data into semantic representations Semantic processing will mostly use SKOS Semantically enrich Europeana content by mapping it to these semantic representations
Main strands of work / Highlights Survey of controlled and structured vocabularies among Europeana data providers Successful migration of selected vocabularies to SKOS Specification of semantics functionality Checking with selected expert users Substantial contribution to the Europeana Data Model (EDM) Specification and stabilisation of the EDM
Challenges and next steps Challenges: Triggering the EDM development Getting commitment for an EDM-based planning Next steps: Contribute to Europeana v1.0, making the EDM and related functionality part of the 'Danube' specifications Continue work on data migration and (semi-)automated object contextualisation
Multilingual Access
Multilingual Access to Europeana WP2, lead by HUB Provide multilingual access capabilities for Europeana Users should be able to find relevant content even if its not described in their native / preferred language Build Europeana Repository of Language Resources Tools for multilingual mapping of controlled vocabularies Suite of translation services for querying and browsing Supported set of languages: Start with English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish Expand with Dutch, Hungarian, Portuguese, Swedish
Main strands of work / Highlights Report on User Preferences and Information Retrieval Scenarios for Multilingual Access in Europeana Specification and development of the Europeana Language Resources Repository Currently in review Multilingual mapping of controlled vocabularies Languages and vocabularies for selection
Challenges / Next steps Challenges: Data gathering Licensing issues Criteria for construction of repository Evaluation of language resources Next steps: Populating the Europeana Language Resource Repository Selection of vocabularies in different languages for mapping Query Translation Module
What do users really want?
User Orientation Why, How? Why: We want Europeana to be used widely by people We are not necessarily identical with these people How: Log file analysis Personas Surveys User Tests Part of WP3, lead by KB-DK
Log File Analysis Task 3.1, UCLC Log File Analysis for Europeana to evaluate the use of the services How do users really navigate and search in Europeana? Method: Deep log analysis First log file analysis report fed into version 1
Personas / User Testing Task 3.2, KB-DK Development of Europeana Personas Archetypical representations of our users Workshop on Personas Personas Catalogue completed 7 personas and relating scenarios defined Should guide development process User Testing of Europeana services with different user communities Registry of Test Users First draft of Usability Guidelines
New Access Channels to Europeana
Spatio-temporal User Interface Task 3.3, UGOE Make use of time-related and geographical metadata of the Europeana Semantic Layer Provide a new visual access channel for Europeana Combination of spatial and temporal metadata for visualisation Interactive and generic map of geo-related tagged events, places and characters in Europe combined with timeline Prototype of spatio-temporal interface and search available Pure JavaScript based approach on the client side Different possible back-ends for maps
Prototype of the Spatio-temporal User Interface
Mobile Access Channel to Europeana Task 3.4, OFFIS Generic Mobile Client, adapting to the user s mobile device 2 main requirements: Adaptation of the mobile Europeana portal to the capabilities of the user's mobile device Location-based searching Allow users to search for works inside Europeana around their current position Integration with Europeana Basic mobile interface for Rhine Release
User Generated Content
Annotation Service Task 5.6, ARC-AIT Allows users to make their own contribution to Europeana content Annotation of multimedia resources Comments, discussion, linking Add value to existing content Enhance Europeana searchability through user-provided metadata Annotation Tool Suite fully integrated with the Europeana Portal Acceptance tests have been executed, currently under review
Image Annotations
Video Annotations
ebooks-on-demand
ebooks-on-demand Task 5.7, UIBK Integration of ebooks on Demand (EOD) Service into Europeana Existing digitisation-on-demand service http://www.books2ebooks.eu/ Allow for an automatic and generic transfer of Books from EOD to Europeana Status: EOD harvesting and metadata aggregation infrastructure implemented EOD workflow software adapted to include workflow for metadata submission and Print-on-Demand 1st prototype of the EOD connector will be implemented by July
Back-office Components
Europeana OAI-PMH Management Infrastructure (REPOX) Part of WP5, managed by ARC-AIT Task 5.3, IST REPOX: Service for metadata harvesting from a large number of OAI data providers Management of OAI data providers of administration of harvested metadata records First REPOX prototype available Functionally complete version in June Aligned with Europeana technology specifications in October
Metadata and Service Registries Europeana Metadata Registry Task 5.1, IST Registration and management of metadata terms and schemas created by various communities in multiple contexts Specification and Design document in review Europeana Service Registry Task 5.2, KB Will manage service descriptions of Web Services and support integration of external services into Europeana Final prototype and documentation delivered Server integration for both Europeana and The European Library will be implemented by end of May
Europeana Persistent Identifier Resolution Service (ERDS) Task 5.4, DNB Meta-Service: forward Persistent Identifier resolution requests to resolution services of national libraries and other identifier networks Two-day workshop on PIs on 17/18 February 2010 at DNB in Frankfurt Report available on EuropeanaConnect Website Alpha version of ERDS available Final version will be implemented by July
Integration of Geographical Information Services Task 5.5, BNP Geoparser and Gazetteer: will enrich Europeana metadata and content with explicit geographical metadata and references Protoypes and showcases of both tools available 2nd Protoypes will be implemented by July
And now for the legal stuff
Europeana Licensing Framework WP4, BNL EuropeanaConnect is building the Europeana Licensing Framework Goals: Create and validate the Data Provider and Aggregator Agreements which govern the Europeana Rhine release Create the draft Europeana Licensing Framework and validate it Build, test and validate tools for implementation of the Framework
Main strands of work / Highlights Data Provider and Data Aggregator Agreements Collecting requirements, several consultation rounds and final validation for Rhine Release Final versions released in late April Europeana Public Domain Charter Controversial topic, as tightly linked to funding of digitisation programs Endorsed by Europeana Foundation and European Commission Positive reactions Public Domain Helper tools Defining decision trees to translate the law into a tool to decide if a work is in the public domain Available in Beta Version
Challenges / Next steps Multi stakeholder nature of rights issues made progress in legal questions slow and complex Next steps: Collecting feedback on agreements from commercial partners and those beyond the immediate cultural heritage sector Planning the Danube legal framework
Important Dates approaching Europeana Rhine Release in Summer 2010 Financial Statements due after M15 (= early September) Commission Review Meeting in Luxemburg: 28/29 September 2010
max.kaiser@onb.ac.at http://www.onb.ac.at http://
Looking forward to a successful and productive meeting!