Digital meets Culture

Wien (Austria), 23-25 May 2017

WikiCite 2017 is a 3-day conference, summit and hack day to be hosted in Vienna, Austria, on May 23-25, 2017. It expands on efforts started last year at WikiCite 2016 to design a central bibliographic repository, as well as tools and strategies to improve information quality and verifiability in Wikimedia projects.

Our goal is to bring together Wikimedia contributors, data modelers, information and library science experts, software engineers, designers and academic researchers who have experience working with Wikipedia’s citations and bibliographic data.

WikiCite 2017 will be a venue to:

* Day 1. (Conference) – present progress on existing work and initiatives for citations and bibliographic data across Wikimedia projects

* Day 2. (Summit) – discuss technical, social, outreach and policy directions

* Day 3. (Hack) – get together to build, based on new ideas and applications

More information on the event can be found here:

How to apply

Participation for this year’s event is limited to 100 individuals. In order to be considered for participation, please fill out the appropriate application form and provide us with some information about yourself, your interests, and expected contribution. Your application will be reviewed and the organizing committee will extend an invitation by March 10, 2017. This application form is to determine the best mix of attendees. Not everyone who applies will receive an invitation, but there will be a waitlist.

Important dates

* February 9, 2017: applications open

* February 27, 2017: applications close, waitlist opens

* March 10, 2017: all final notifications of acceptance are issued, waitlist processing begins

* March 31, 2017: attendee list is finalized

Travel support

Like last year, limited funding to cover travel costs of prospective participants will be available. Requests for travel support should be submitted via the application form. We will confirm by March 10, if we can provide you with travel support.

Contact

For any question, you can contact the organizing committee via: wikicite@wikimedia.org

We look forward to seeing you in Vienna!

The WikiCite 2017 organizing committee

Website: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite_2017

Grenoble, 26-30 June 2017

Summer school Digital Editing/Digital Humanities

The University of Grenoble-Alpes together with the Maison de Sciences de l’Homme-Alpes with the sponsorship of ITN DIXIT* organises a summer school in Digital Editing and Digital Humanities.

Details will be published shortly, but the summer school is aimed at PhD students, early career researchers and beyond that want to understand what is Digital editing and Digital Humanities by doing it. For this first edition there are no prerequisite, as the the teaching will not assume any previous knowledge.

Courses will be offered in the field of:
– HTML and CSS
– XML
– TEI and EPIDOC
– RDF
– XSLT
– NLP, tree-banking and lemmatisation
– GIS

Participants will attend common classes for the first 2 days and then they will be able to choose between one of the 3 workshops offered every day.
The languages of teaching are: French and Italian.
Many scholarship will be sponsored by DiXiT, particularly for PhD students.

More information will be available soon.

DiXiT website: http://dixit.uni-koeln.de/

*DiXiT is an international network of high-profile institutions from the public and the private sector that are actively involved in the creation and publication of digital scholarly editions. DiXiT offers a coordinated training and research programme for early stage researchers and experienced researchers in the multi-disciplinary skills, technologies, theories, and methods of digital scholarly editing. DiXiT is funded under Marie Curie Actions within the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme and runs from September 2013 until August 2017.

expressions of interest to be sent by Thursday 16 February 2017

EUDAT-EGI-INDIGO Call for Competence Centres and Business Pilots

EUDAT, EGI and INDIGO-DataCloud are joining forces to address the current fragmentation of the data and computing e-Infrastructure landscape and are looking for private and public partners developing and/or providing thematic services that support open science research workflows.

The consortium is now seeking to engage with research communities and business organizations.

COMPETENCE CENTRES

The joint proposal will establish and fund Competence Centers (CCs). Purpose of the CC is to foster the use of the advanced digital capabilities and resources provided by EGI, EUDAT, INDIGO-DataCloud and other relevant e-Infrastructures, service and technology providers, in order to support data- and computing-intensive science.

Early adopters of e-Infrastructure services are invited to send expressions of interest to establish a Competence Centre that will allow them to test, adapt, and integrate the digital capabilities they need to pursue they research, with the support of e-Infrastructure and technology experts.

Selected partners will be invited to join an EGI-EUDAT-INDIGO led consortium preparing a proposal to be submitted as part of H2020 e-Infra-12-2017 topic, Data & Distributed Computing e-Infrastructures for Open Science, subtopic a) Secure and agile data and distributed computing e-infrastructures.
DIGITAL INNOVATION HUB

The proposal will also fund specific pilots to foster innovation between e-Infrastructures and the private sector through building an ecosystem of SMEs, large industries, startups, researchers, accelerators, and investors to become active business partners of e-Infrastructures as customers and/or service providers. These initial pilots will serve as early demonstrators of the project’s Joint Digital Innovation Hub (DIH).

Click here to read the full text of the call.

Please prepare your application by downloading and completing the template that is available here.

You are invited to send your expression of interest in participating to the project proposal by sending the completed template to: editorial-board@mailman.egi.eu by Thursday 16 February 2017, 24:00 CET.

Augmented Reality significantly helps to engage the user with the content, in a performance that gives new meaning to the philosophy of edutaintment and learning by doing.

The magnificent adventure of a ‘Fragment’. Block NXLVI Parthenon North Frieze in Augmented Reality

In this article, appeared on Scires-IT journal, it is presented a case study by Alessandra Cirafici (SUN Second University of Naples, Italy), Donato Maniello (Studio gloWArp, Academy of Fines Arts-Naples, Italy) and Valeria Amoretti (SUN Second University of Naples, Italy), illustrating the application of Augmented Reality to a fragment of the Parthenon, aiming to investigate the role played by the introduction of digital technologies in communication strategies for the enjoyment of cultural heritage and in the formation of a new concept of “sensory environment”, intended as a space where the combination of physical presence with virtual elements generates unprecedented means of experience and education.

The aim of this study is the creation of a multimedia totem with the use of video mapping techniques, representing a particular form of augmented reality, in order to provide new means – different from the existing ones- for museum enjoyment. The object of the totem was the creation of a documentary about the full scale reproduction of block NXLVI of the north frieze of the Parthenon.

With the words “Augmented Reality” we mean the addition of more information than what the observer would normally perceive, mediated by the use of a computer. Thus the human sensory perception is enhanced by information generally manipulated and electronically channeled that would otherwise not be perceived by the five senses.

Three main aspects define the multimedia totem: indoor use of Augmented Reality, its use for the enhancement of cultural heritage, and the digital anastylosis that makes it possible to reconstruct the missing part directly on the element or on a copy of it. These options provide the opportunity to engage different age groups with the expressive potential of Augmented Reality also in terms of performance, with the possible transformation of any surface into a dynamic display.

Download the full article (PDF, 1 Mb)

Grand prize of the European Commission honoring Innovation in Technology, Industry and Society stimulated by the Arts

STARTS Prize 2017 Open Call / deadline extended 13th March 2017

Appointed by the European Commission, Ars Electronica, BOZAR and Waag Society are launching a prize to select the most pioneering collaborations and results in the field of creativity and innovation at the crossings of science and technology with the arts. This follows the launch of a new activity in the European Commission named STARTS: Innovation at the nexus of Science, Technology, and the ARTS.

Science, Technology and Arts (=STARTS) form a nexus with an extraordinarily high potential for creative innovation. And such innovation is considered to be precisely what’s called for if we’re to master the social, ecological and economic challenges that Europe will be facing in the near future. The role of artists thus is no longer seen to be just about propagating scientific and technological knowledge and skills among the general public but much more as a kind of catalyst that can inspire and trigger innovative processes. The artistic practice of creative exploration and experimental appropriation of new technologies has a wide reaching potential to contribute to the development of new products and new economic, social and business models. Accordingly, the STARTS Prize focuses on artistic works that influence or change the way we look at technology, and on innovative forms of collaboration between the ICT sector and the world of art and culture.

Two prizes, each with €20,000 prize money, are offered to honor innovative projects at the intersection of science, technology and the arts: one for artistic exploration, and thus projects with the potential to influence or change the way technology is deployed, developed or perceived, and one for innovative collaboration between industry/technology and art/culture in ways that open up new paths for innovation.

Grand Prize — Artistic Exploration

Awarded for artistic exploration and art works where appropriation by the arts has a strong potential to influence or alter the use, deployment or perception of technology.

Grand Prize — Innovative Collaboration

Awarded for innovative collaboration between industry or technology and the arts that opens new pathways for innovation.

Submission phase ends on March 13, 2017!

More information: https://starts-prize.aec.at/en/

Bit Rot Be Gone, second winter school for audiovisual archiving

MediaConch in use at Sound and Vision’s Winter School

Source: Sound and Vision blog post by Erwin Verbruggen

Kara discussing Preservation Metadata and PREMIS. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg, CC BY 2.0.

Getting a grasp on a concept like digital preservation seem like a headache. Over the past 20 years, a steady stream of academic research and innovation projects have tried to fix the problem of keeping digital objects over a longer stretch of time than the systems and software they rely on were designed for. Eternity. Plus one. These attempts – and the smart minds that cooked them up: actual rocket scientists as well as librarians, engineers, curators, conservators, and archivists – have produced piles of documents to plought through.Often these use different words and come from different perspectives. With the Winter School for Audiovisual Archiving, we aimed to create a hands-on training that applies digital preservation frameworks and solutions to audiovisual collections. This in order to make collection managers and other caretakers feel more adept, responsible and aware to make use of the best practices that are out there.

Fourteen participants hailed from near and far – with participants from Mexico, South Africa and the United States, as well as a variety of public and private organisations. Trainers Kara Van Malssen (US), Peter Bubestinger (AT), and Erwin Verbruggen (NL) guided the group through lectures, use cases and excercises to bring them up to speed with current preservation frameworks and applications for audiovisual collections. After refreshing the participant’s grasp on OAIS concepts in order to use the model as a roadmap through the course, thinking through the people as well as system requirements needed to do digital preservation was the order of the day. Throughs hands-on excercises, participants approached their own collection’s challenges and got a peek into applying low-barrier-to-entry applications, such as VLC, MediaInfo, Exactly, Fixity and MediaConch to assess their audiovisual materials.

Patricia introducing some of the TATE’s art works. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg, CC BY 2.0.

Inspiration came from three guest speakers, who gave practical examples of how their organisations implemented approaches to digital preservation and translated conceptual models to practical workflows. From the human rights organization WITNESS, we learned how a small team can reach out to non-specialists and involve them in the archiving process from the very start. Yvonne Ng shared some of the wonderful resources the organisation created, such as their Activists’ Guide to Archiving Video or on-going updates on the WITNESS Archiving blog.

From the TATE Museum in London, Patricia Falcão introduced the challenges that come with taking care of a wildly varying collection that may seem small in numbers (~ 500 hours “Title”) but exceeds most institutions’ time-based media collection’s value – an estimated €25 million. Through European Commission-supported projects such as Presto4U and Pericles, the small team has been able to expand its expertise and work closely together with archive experts such as Dave Rice and fellow museums such as MOMA to invent or apply solutions to problems that just a few years ago didn’t yet have a clear answer. She also detailed how open-source tools such as Archivematica and the future implementation of Binder should help them sift through the collections and combine information from cataloguing system TMS with technical info necessary for the preservation chain.

Participants at work. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg, CC BY 2.0.

During the training, besides guides shared by research groups and some of the excellent AVPreserve papers, example documents from fellow organisations such as the Dryad Digital Repository and the Irish Film Institute served as an example. We also looked at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision’s own governance documents. Guest speaker Josefien Schuurman explained how these came about/. As an organisation that has demanding turn-around requirements as well as a long-term cultural preservation mission, we apply the high-level concepts of the digital preservation domain to both our organisation and our infrastructure. After the period of mass digitisation brought on by the Images for the Future project, they helped us figure out the preservation puzzle and led us to achieve the Data Seal of Approval last year.

We closed the training by challenging our participants to consult each other on the next steps for their organisation. On the first day, one participant mentioned how their organisation applied ‘band-aid solutions’ to its preservation challenges. We look forward to hearing back from our participants how they fared to replace these with proper planning and tracking with the knowledge shared during this training session. If you have ideas or questions about how we might help you fulfill your preservation challenges and demands, feel free to contact us through the form below or write to us directly at winterschool@beeldengeluid.nl.

Winter School for Audiovisual Archiving 2017 group picture. Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg, CC BY 2.0.

More info

The Winter School for Audiovisual Archiving 2017 was organised with support from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in collaboration with AVA_Net. Much thanks to our advisory board: Rachael Stoeltje (reto.ch), Harry Romijn (GAVA), Annemieke de Jong (Sound and Vision), Eef Masson (UvA), Kara Van Malssen (AVPreserve) and to Johan Oomen.

Interested in future Winter School editions? Stay up to date by leaving your contact details through this form.
Missed the webinars? Revisit the guest speaker talks via the Sound and Vision YouTube channel:
- Yvonne Ng – WITNESS Media Archive: 25 Years of Human Rights Video
- Patricia Falcão – Preservation of Digital Video at TATE
- Josefien Schuurman – Sound and Vision for Preservation
Find the pictures Sebastiaan ter Burg took on his Flickr page.

deadline for submission of proposals is 1 March 2017 and the journal will be published on June 2017

SCIRES IT journal / Call for Papers / Vol. 7 No. 1

SCIRES-IT (SCIentific RESearch and Information Technology) is inviting papers for Vol. 7 No. 1 which is scheduled to be published on June 2017.

The deadline for submission of proposals is scheduled for March 1, 2017.

Papers should be submitted electronically via email (sciresit.journal@gmail.com) to the Editor in Chief in DOC and PDF, including a cover sheet containing corresponding author’s name, affiliation, mailing address, phone, fax number, email address and short Cv.

SCIRES-IT (e-ISSN 2239-4303), is an open access journal providing an international forum for the exchange and sharing of know-how in the areas of Digitalization and Multimedia Technologies and Information & Communication Technology (ICT) in support of Cultural and environmental Heritage (CH) documentation, preservation and fruition.

It is a peer-reviewed journal, founded in 2011, available online on a semi-annual basis, at: http://caspur-ciberpublishing.it/index.php/scires-it.

Here you can download the template: http://caspur-ciberpublishing.it/public/journals/43/SCIRES-IT_Template.docx

Crakow (Poland), 7-9 September 2017

Eighth European Workshop on Applied Cultural Economics / call for papers open until 15 May 2017

The European Workshop on Applied Cultural Economics (EWACE) was founded in 1990 and is intended to provide a forum for the development and dissemination of applications of quantitative methods in cultural economics, as well as cultural-related applications of mathematical economics, experimental economics and other quantitative approaches (e.g. applied micro and macroeconometric approaches).

Authors are welcome to submit papers on applied cultural economics and we offer the following lists to illustrate, but not exhaust, possible topics: industrial organization of cultural products and services (e.g. pricing, trade); labour market issues of artists (e.g. wages, migration cultural participation); spillovers and externalities of firms in the cultural sector (agglomeration); pricing of art items; studies on demand elasticities. Participation of interested researchers and policy makers from all countries is welcome.

Series organizers and Scientific Committee:

Karol J. Borowiecki, University of Southern Denmark
Christiane Hellmanzik, Technical University Dortmund
John O’Hagan, Trinity College, University of Dublin
A. E. Scorcu, University of Bologna
R. Zanola, University of Eastern Piedmont

Deadline for presenting the abstract: 15th May 2017

Hosted by Cracow University of Economics: http://www.uek.krakow.pl/

Download the call for papers with full instructions: PDF, 400 Kb

Chicago (IL) USA, 20-21 April 2017

DPLAfest 2017

DPLAfest 2017—the fourth major gathering of the Digital Public Library of America’s broad community—will take place on April 20-21, 2017 in Chicago at Chicago Public Library’s Harold Washington Library Center.

An annual series of workshops, presentations, and discussions, DPLAfest brings together librarians, archivists, and museum professionals, developers and technologists, publishers and authors, teachers and students, and many others to celebrate DPLA and its community of creative professionals. The fest takes place in different locations each year and is open to the public.

The hosts for DPLAfest 2017 include Chicago Public Library, the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, Chicago Collections, and the Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS). Taking place in downtown Chicago, DPLAfest 2017 will bring together hundreds of people from DPLA’s large and growing community over two days for interactive workshops, hackathons and other collaborative activities, engaging discussions with community leaders and practitioners, fun events, and more.

Learn more, register and get all information: https://dp.la/info/get-involved/dplafest/april-2017/

as an additional outcome of E-Space project, a useful How-To booklet about hackathons

Learn from the E-Space Hackathons experience

The holding of hackathons is a popular and already well-established activity that offers industries the possibility to gather people enthusiastic to develop new ideas. The E-Space project took up this concept and developed it further, re-conceptualising the meaning of ‘hackathon’ in the cultural heritage sector, engaging creative industries, developers, professionals and new audiences with content and tools delivered and developed, respectively as part of the Europeana Space project.

busy participants at the Open and Hybrid Publishing hackathon

E-Space Hackathons, 6 events held in various European cities, were conceived as a platform for engagement and the clear response was that such events are incredibly beneficial not just for engagement but for stimulating institutions as a whole, gaining new ideas and energy through the younger, creative industry participants. Alongside engaging new audiences, the structural purposes of the hackathons was to inspire the creation of new businesses that will build strong business models wherein creative re-use of cultural heritage materials can develop business sustainability. Out of the E-Space hackathon, 7 winning projects passed throught two rounds of selection (the Hackathon and a Business Modelling Workshop), and were eventually tunnelled in an intensive incubation support, thus being prepared for their approach to the real market.

What made E-Space hackathons so unique, successful and path breaking is the focus on concept development, knowledge-sharing and business modeling rather than pure coding. It was not the value of the prize that attracted participants: what was highly appreciated by the participants is the possibility of exchanging ideas, developing synergies around the concept of re-using digital (cultural) content. E-Space Hackathons gave people the challenge of converting their ideas in a sustainable business model with a possible market potential.

Of course, a hackathon is not a one-size-fits-all format that suits every purpose. It can bring insights, inspiration and ideas. But its success depends on proper organization and its focus.

Based on the experience with organizing six hackathons in the Europeana Space project and pre-existing experiences with project partners, we created a how to guide, exploring the use of hackathons in the cultural sector and helping others to get started with organising one themselves.

This publication intends to share the lessons we learnt for the realization of a successful event. It was developed by partner WAAG and is available under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike).

Downlad the booklet: PDF, 8 Mb

About E-Space hackathons: http://www.europeana-space.eu/hackathons-home/

About the 7 Incubated projects: http://www.europeana-space.eu/e-space-incubated-projects/

WAAG website: http://waag.org/en/news/hacking-culture-guide