Digital meets Culture

Pilots applications were displayed and many attendees were interested and wanted to learn more on the project

Digital Echoes Symposium 2016: Dance Pilot and Games Pilot on show

by Hetty Blades and Rosamaria Cisneros, Coventry University (UK)

The Europeana Space Dance and Games Pilot joined forces and organised the 6^th edition of the Digital Echoes Symposium. The event took place at Coventry University in the UK on Friday March 4^th 2016. The day opened with a keynote by Professor Matthew Fuller (Goldsmith University) “Just Fun Enough to go Completely Mad About: on games, procedures and amusement” and welcomed a number of experts in dance, arts and humanities, and saw a range of practitioners who are critically engaging with archival material.

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We invited contributions that considered the impacts of public/user participation on archival practice and research, and their legacy for the future. The symposium saw a series of presentations that ranged from a silent lecture by C-DaRE’s own PhD student, Emilie Gallier, whose instructions led participants to manipulate and dance with archival material, to case studies and projects by leading artists and researchers who are working in an interdisciplinary fashion of bringing Cultural Heritage and the arts and/or dance together through the use of archival practices. C-DaRE’s visiting researcher, Monica Dantas, also presented her work on the process of building a dance archive in Southern Brazil and referenced C-DaRE’s Siobhan Davies RePlay archive (http://www.siobhandaviesreplay.com/sdda) as a key pillar of her research.

In addition to organizing the event, the Pilots set up their applications and allowed delegates to engage with the tools. The two applications DanceSpaces and DancePro were on display as well as the Games Pilot’s casual, educational and social games. The Europeana Space corner was frequented throughout the day and many participants spoke with the Pilot coordinators to gain more knowledge on Europeana, Europeana Space and its various activities.

The event titled (Re)Collecting the Past:(Re)Making the Future, focused on participation as one of the most prominent legacies of the digital, in particular how it invokes processes of collectivity, democratisation and decentering. The tools were a great asset to the day as they allowed users to see how the re-use of digital content can be (re)worked to support new ways of (re)making the future.

Learn more on the Dance Pilot: http://www.europeana-space.eu/dance-pilot/

Learn more on the Games Pilot: http://www.europeana-space.eu/games-pilot/

photos credit to Koko Zin

Results of the EC concertation meeting for PCP projects

The third concertation meeting for on-going PCP projects in DG Connect, organised by the European Commission in Brussels on 10 March 2015, gave the opportunity to the attendees to network and share experiences on common issues that they face while implementing PCPs.

The meeting started with a plenary session, which provided an update on the state of play of PCP implementation, including the main lessons learned so far, indications how to prepare the deployment of the innovative solution through PPI already during the PCP, and a presentation of the new Horizon 2020 CNECT PCP projects.

In the afternoon, two paralles workshops took place, the first one dedicated to the ongoing FP7 project to discuss how to test, assess and evaluate the results of the PCP and how to measure its impact, the second one dedicated to the new H2020 projects, to discuss how to carry out the market consultation and how to prepare the invitation to tender.

Antonella Fresa, Technical Coordinator of PREFORMA, presented the methodology and approach to evaluate and improve the software prototypes, i.e. how set up a framework and an infractucture that allows to “train” the tools during the prototyping phase and to evaluate them during the testing phase.

Download here the agenda of the meeting.

Download here the presentation by PREFORMA.

Prof. Fred Truyen participated with a lecture about the actitvities of E-Space in the domain of the education, also announcing the upcoming MOOC.

E-Space at INTED 2016

by Clarissa Colangelo, KU Leuven

From the 7^th till the 9^th of March 2016, the 10th annual International Technology, Education and Development Conference took place in Valencia, Spain. Every year, INTED brings together more than 700 delegates from 80 different countries, providing the opportunity to present own projects, research and innovative methods in teaching and learning. It is a platform to discuss the latest developments in the field of teaching and learning methodologies, educational projects, innovations and new technologies applied to education and research, with experts from all over the world.

Among the various sessions and panels of the interesting and large conference program, E-Space was present. Prof Fred Truyen (KU Leuven, coordinator of the E-Space Photography pilot and president of Photoconsortium) didn’t miss the opportunity to give a lecture about the contribution of Europeana and Europeana Space to education during the session dedicated to Open Educational Resources. His talk focused on the Europeana portal and collections, right labels, the E-Space Educational channel and the upcoming E-Space MOOC.

The Conference Proceedings, among which is the article by Fred Truyen “MOOCs and Online Learning: the Contribution of Europeana to Education”, will soon be available online, in the iated Digital Library.

Read the Photography pilot blog HERE.

Jasná (Slovakia), 14-16 March 2016

Innovative Libraries In a Digital Environment

For the 19th time, the beautiful surroundings of Low Tatras will create a scenery for the ILIDE 2016 Conference where as usually the digital preservation, digital collections access and digital processing experts from around the world will gather.

The conference is the continuation of well-known and prestigious Digital Library Conference. The organisers felt that the name should reflect the broader area of topics the conference has recently presented and ilide: Innovative Library in Digital Era fully represents the conference’s broader scope. However, the ilide2016conference is not losing its attractive atmosphere and remains a unique opportunity to connect with library professionals, who work in a variety of government, academic and private sectors.

The presentations will be given by leading representatives of the most important institutions dedicated to librarianship, archiving, information technology, cultural and collecting activities.

Antonella Fresa, from Promoter srl, Technical Coordinator of PREFORMA, will present the project, focusing in particular on the open source approach and on the forthcoming testing phase, showing how the conformance checkers can be used and integrated in other systems.

The full programme of the Conference is available here: http://ilideconference.schk.sk/wordpress/digital-library-english/agenda/

Registration here: http://ilideconference.schk.sk/wordpress/digital-library-english/registration/

For further information please visit the Conference website.

The museum is interested to test Blinkster app and share results with other partners in Lithuania

E-Space network enlarges: welcome to Rokiškis regional museum

Rokiškis regional museum is an institutional member of the Lithuanian Museums Association. The beginnings of Rokiškis Regional Museum date back to 1933, when enthusiasts assembled in the Society for Regional Studies and established the Museum of Regional Studies. The first museum spaces were two rooms in the county library. In 1939 the museum’s collection consisted of 1046 objects of museological value.

This regional museum has an impressive amount of visitors per year and may become an interesting case for the use of the Blinkster prototype developed in the E-Space Museums pilot, and for cooperation with European partners. The Rokiškis museum is interested to test Blinkster app and share results with other partners within the project funded by national program of the Lithuanian Council for Culture.

Currently, the museum houses over 100 thousand exhibits. The unique history and culture of the Rokiškis Region is preserved here: countless archaeological finds, old books, documents and prints, coins and banknotes from various ages, visual and applied art pieces representing manor house culture, a valuable collection of the Counts’ clothing, manor house archival material, photographs, old and new folk art collections with the exceptional works of the 20th century’s most famous Lithuanian wood carver, Lionginas Šepka, and the only collection of nativity sculptures in the country. The museum conducts research, publishing, educational and expositional activity, as well as organising events and festivities. Every year the museum attracts over 50,000 visitors from more than 30 countries.

The project „Rokiškis manor“ was the winner of the Lithuanian Destination of Exellence that corresponds the theme „Tourism and Regeneration of physical sites, 2011“ In 2012, the Rokiškis Regional Museum was chosen as the Museum of the Year. It was selected by experts as one of Lithuania’s 20 best museums, receiving the most votes by online news site delfi.lt readers. Since 2012 ongoing digitization activities, the museum provided content in the Project Europeana Photography.

www.muziejusrokiskyje.lt

Venice (Italy), 17-18 March 2016

The Future Museum Challenge / E-Space hackathon in Venice

Another inspiring hackathon for Europeana Space took place in Venice, at the Ca’ Foscari University Campus (Mestre), dedicated to Museums.

The call itself was exciting: We’re looking for innovative and advantageous designers, coders, museum experts and lovers, cultural managers, artists, creatives, IT and marketing experts to take up the challenge of redefining the museum experience and take their new ideas to market!

Over 120 people responded to the call and over 90 of them came to Venice to bring their ideas.

The event was a great success with hackers and teams coming from different countries, and the nice organization of hosting partner Ca’ Foscari with the support of Museums Pilot coordinator Fondazione Sistema Toscana and of Technical coordinator Promoter S.r.l.

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During the two-day event, the 16 different teams focused on building new products and developing creative ideas that will bring museums into the 21st century with a better user experience, enhancing content, engaging the audience and improving the educational experience. Participants worked on creating products that are not only innovative but also can produce sustainable business models.

The event started with a plenary session that set the scene for the challenge with presentations about the Museums Pilot and its contents, the E-Space project, the WITH platform, Europeana, as well as the insights on the competition itself.

The selection of the three winners was very tough, due to the high quality of proposed ideas. After a pleasant but long discussion, the jury voted the first three promising and innovative ideas, whose representatives and will now fly to London for an intensive Business Modelling Workshop to hone their ideas’ business potential.

Here’s the lucky winners:

Proverb team with “PostArt”; a way to share contents and emotions from the museum visit
3logic team with “YourMuseum”; a mobile app to see really beyond what is seen from the usual visitor’s eye
Lilith team with an app to spice up the museum visit with edutainment features

…but we are sure that we will hear again also from some of the other projects and teams!

After a further selection, only one team from the three will be selected: the one with the strongest idea will win a 3-month intensive incubation package from the Europeana Space Network.

If we had to summarize the hackathon in 3 words, the choice would be: exciting, inspiring, successful!

Event website: http://www.europeana-space.eu/hackathons/museums/

Download the flyer (PDF, 3.15 Mb)

cooperation agreement signed between the two Europeana related projects

Europeana Sounds & Europeana Space

A cooperation agreement was recently signed between E-Space and Europeana Sounds. The two BPN are joining forces under the common umbrella of Europeana to develop synergies and enhance the access, dissemination and reuse of digital cultural heritage. The scope of Europeana Sounds, that is also a Best Practice Network, is opening the gateway to Europe’s sound and music heritage is the core of Europeana Sounds.

Tens of thousands of audio items dating back to the invention of the first sound recorders are waiting to be discovered in numerous museums, archives and libraries throughout Europe. With their aggregation and digitisation, the voices and sounds of Europe will become accessible online to the widest audience. To realize this vision, Europeana Sounds will:

Increase the amount of audio content available via Europeana and improve geographical and thematic coverage by aggregating recordings with widespread popular appeal
Improve their access by enriching descriptions, developing techniques for cross-media and cross-collection linking
Develop audience-specific sound channels that will improve search facility, navigation and user experience
Promote the creative reuse of recordings
Identify and advocate recommendations on how to resolve domain constraints and improve access to out of commerce audio content, working with music publishers and rights holders
Build a network of stakeholders: specialists in technology, rights issues, software development and sound archives. The network will expand to new content-providers and mainstream distribution platforms to ensure the widest possible availability.

http://www.europeanasounds.eu/

Next Europeana Sounds conference will take place in Vilnius on 4 November 2016: http://www.europeanasounds.eu/europeana-sounds-conference-2016

RMIT is one of Australia's original tertiary institutions and a global university of technology, design and enterprise. Its European hub now joins RICHES network of common interest.

RMIT Europe joins RICHES affiliate partners

We are glad to announce that a Cooperation Agreement was recently signed between RICHES and RMIT Europe, for research exchange and cross dissemination.

Based in the vibrant city of Barcelona, Spain, RMIT Europe is focused on extending RMIT’s global reach across research, industry and student mobility. RMIT is one of Australia’s original tertiary institutions and a global university of technology, design and enterprise. Its European hub, which was established in 2013, includes a team of researchers and professional staff focused on delivering research impact and global student experiences.

The RMIT Europe team match RMIT’s research strengths and priorities with European funding and collaboration opportunities. Fostering global mobility for RMIT students is also at its core, whether it is hosting PhD students at the European hub in Barcelona for fieldwork or facilitating study tours and connecting students with study programmes and industry across Europe.

RMIT website: www.rmit.eu

The latest version of veraPDF is now available.

veraPDF version 0.10 released

The latest version of veraPDF is now available for download in the PREFORMA Open Source Portal. This marks the end of the PREFORMA project’s first re-design phase.

Version 0.10 has the following feature enhancements:

Conformance checker:

new implementation of the XMP validation
proper CharSet / CIDSet validation

Command line:

processes stdin if no file paths are supplied for use in *nix pipes;
directory and recursive sub-directory processing; and
text mode output with summarised output.

Test corpus:

initial set of PDF/A-2 test files

There are also a number of bug fixes:

Conformance checker:

fixed CMap / WMode validation
minor fixes in PDF/A-2b and PDF/A-3b validation profiles

Command line fixes:

all CLI output for a single file now in one XML document; and
error output now all goes to stderr, keeping stdout clean.

Visit veraPDF’s page in the PREFORMA Open Source Portal at: http://www.preforma-project.eu/pdfa-conformance-checker.html

Download veraPDF 0.10 at: http://downloads.verapdf.org/rel/verapdf-installer.zip

Release notes are published at: https://github.com/veraPDF/veraPDF-library/releases/tag/v0.10.7

veraPDF is building the definitive, open source PDF/A validator. Please download and test the software. If you encounter problems, or wish to make suggestions, please add them to the project’s GitHub issue tracker. Your feedback is very important, it helps to improve the software.

Keep up to date with the latest developments of veraPDF by subscribing to the veraPDF consortium’s newsletter.

Led by the Open Preservation Foundation and the PDF Association, the veraPDF consortium is developing the definitive open source, file-format validator for all parts and conformance levels of ISO 19005 (PDF/A). The software is designed to meet the needs of memory institutions responsible for preserving digital content for the long term.

The veraPDF consortium is funded by the PREFORMA project. PREFORMA (PREservation FORMAts for culture information/e-archives) is a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) project co-funded by the European Commission under its FP7-ICT Programme.

European Commission, 25 Avenue de Beaulieu Brussels, 7 March 2016

European Standardisation of cloud computing contracts, SLAs and procurement

This workshop offers an opportunity to learn of progress in the standardization of Cloud contracts and SLAs by ISO-liaison body SLALOM and cloud procurement by PICSE, two EC-backed initiatives.

Delegates can contribute to the emerging standards and understand how they can use the emerging results within their organisations.

The European Open Science Cloud envisages a trusted, open environment for storing, sharing and re-using data and supporting Open Science practices.

How can best practice procurement procedures, cloud contracts and SLAs affect the establishment of such environment? Join PICSE (Procurement Innovation for Cloud Services in Europe- www.picse.eu) and SLALOM (Legal & open model terms for cloud SLA and contracts www.slalom-project.eu) and join the debate.

The workshop will consist of two sessions: a morning SLALOM meeting with the EC DIGIT services and selected invitees and afternoon SLALOM/PICSE public workshop. The workshop will be the opportunity to present to public procurers and policy makers the advances made in the cloud procurement and contract field and to establish a set of call for actions for the next 5 years.

Venue: European Commission CNECT unit premises, 25 Avenue de Beaulieu, Room 0/S 1, 1160 Brussels.

Agenda: find the agenda for the event at http://bit.ly/1WKJv6x

Registration: register for the event at http://bit.ly/1LeG6vL