Project Description
Scope: National /Regional
Region: (Flanders: Northern half of Belgium)
Institutional Participants
Heritage sector participants
- Erfgoed Vlaanderen (Heritage Flanders)
- Vlaams Instituut voor het Onroerend Erfgoed (Flemish Institute for Tangible Heritage)
- Vlaams Centrum voor Volkscultuur (Flemish Center for Folk Culture)
- Toerisme Vlaanderen (Tourism Flanders)
Industrial Partners
- Synergetics
- Adlib Software
- The 8igtht Day
- Visual Dimension
Research Partners
- SMIT (Studies on Media Information and Telecommunication)
- EDM (Expertise centre for Digital Media)
- MMLab (MultiMedia Lab)
- IBCN (INTEC Broadband Communication Networks)
- MICT (Media and ICT)
Individual Participants:
- Bart De Nil , Project leader
- Gert Nulens, Research leader
- Nico Verplancke, Programme manager
- Jeroen Walteru,s Member Steering Group
- Bart Debunne, Member Steering Group
- Christophe Soulliaert, Member Steering Group
- Mario Stevens, Member Steering Group
- Bert Degenhart Drenth, Member Steering Group
- Daniël Pletinckx, Member Steering Group
- Luk Vervenne, Member Steering Group
- Philippe Druez, Member Steering Group
- Kris Luyten, Member Steering Group
Funding Organization(s)
Governmental
- Interdisciplinary institute for BroadBand Technology (IBBT)
- Flemish Ministry of Culture, Youth, Sports and Media
- Flemish Ministry of Urban Policy, Housing and Immovable Heritage
Private
- Synergetics, Adlib Software, The 8igtht Day, Visual Dimension
Funding Amount
- 1,427,300 Currency: Euro
Duration
- Start Date 01/04/2007 End Date 31/03/2009
Project Description
A. Problem Statement
‘Heritage 2.0’ is performing research on a social, interactive, location-based heritage experience via mobile devices within a network of heritage sites. An often-heard critique on the use of ICT in a heritage context focuses on the individualized nature of the experience. The innovative aspect of this project lies, therefore, specifically in the focus on the importance of social interaction within a cultural experience. The objective is to link that component – universally deemed important when experiencing heritage physically – to a digital environment. Group communication can encourage participants to interact with one another and to stimulate each other. Another important aspect is the blending in of the virtual and the real.
B. Objectives
The specific technical and/or scientific objectives that are key to this project, are:
- The development of a metadata- and data exchange model for the Flemish heritage sector, starting from existing (heritage) standards and with inclusion of existing best practice in social software applications and their bottom-up data description. This part of the research constitutes the foundation for a new form of heritage experience (concerning content-combination) and situates itself on the level of federated digital repositories and metadata structures. On the one hand the model needs to allow that Flemish heritage databases can be linked with each other and with internet applications. On the other hand heritage databases need to be able to contain (besides expert-data) data introduced by cultural participants themselves.
- Research on the required network technology to pass location-based information within the specific context of Flemish heritage-sites. This includes a study on the most important network technologies and their configuration for the opening up of historical heritage locations. The stipulation of the most optimal network configuration is not evident because of the sometimes exceptional conditions on the sites (big concrete walls, old buildings, …). Because there is no square and ready solution for localization methods, a demonstrator-platform will be developed for the collection of relevant location-based userdata.
- The development
of a generic system for the automatic generation of context and
visitor related data and for the transformation of these data
into appropriate contents and interfaces tailored to specific user profiles.
This research must lead to ‘individual adaptable’ interfaces, created on-the-fly ‘during
use’. This individual interface must also fit in a group concept
where multiple visitors can in some way be linked together and where social
interactions play a significant role. The challenge consists in supporting
the whole visitor-process in an optimal manner.
Around the central research aspects mentioned above, an integrated demonstrator will be constructed which can be used by and is extendable to the larger heritage sector. In the preparation of the more technical work packages, an international State-of-the-Art will be made up around the implementation and use of new media in the heritage sector. This includes a requirement analysis about digital heritage, an analysis of the possibilities, best-practices and pitfalls of the mobile opening up of heritage. Furthermore, research will be done about the roles social interaction and group communication can play in an online and offline heritage setting.
C. Methods
- focus group interviews (for needs assessment of heritage particpants and heritage experts)
- best practices analyses
- application development
D. Milestones
Milestones | Date | Deliverable |
---|---|---|
Start project | 01‑04‑2007 | |
End Project | 31‑03‑2009 | Demonstrator + Final report |
Milestones WP1 | 31‑11‑2007 | 1.1 Needs assessment digital heritage |
31‑11‑2007 | 1.2 Mobile e‑culture: role of mobile devices in heritage experiences | |
31‑11‑2007 | 1.3 Role of social interaction and communication in experiencing heritage | |
Milestones WP2 | 31‑01‑2008 | 2.1 State‑of‑the‑art online heritage, bottom‑up heritage experiences |
30‑11‑2008 | 2.2 Model interfaces heritage sector Flanders | |
31‑03‑2009 | 2.3 Prototype metadata model | |
Milestones WP3 | 30‑06‑2007 | 3.1 Technical requirements for location based information |
31‑07‑2008 | 3.2 Network technologies and configuration for digital distribution of heritage content | |
31‑09‑2008 | 3.3 Methods for location based content distribution | |
31‑01‑2009 | 3.4 Demonstrator Integration in Context management platform | |
31‑03‑2009 | 3.5 Demonstrator | |
Milestones WP4 | 31‑01‑2008 | 4.1 Report Context‑Acquisition and process |
30‑04‑2008 | 4.2 Report user profiling | |
31‑09‑2008 | 4.3 Prototype interface generation linked to context and user | |
31‑03‑2009 | 4.4 Prototype with social interaction | |
Milestones WP5 | 31‑03‑2009 | 5 Integrated demonstrator |
E. Products
31-03-2009
- Metadata model for Flemish cultural heritage (movable/immovable heritage, tangible/intangible heritage)
- Demonstrator for location based heritage information distribution
- Demonstrator for user and context generated heritage content
Cite as:
Nulens, G., and K. Luyten, Heritage 2.0 , in International Cultural Heritage Informatics Meeting (ICHIM07): Proceedings, J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. 2007. Published October 24, 2007 at http://www.archimuse.com/ichim07/papers/nulens/nulens.html