Digital meets Culture

January, the gateway to a new year

EUDAT News bullettin – January 2014

January brings with it lots of new activities from EUDAT including the open Call for Collaboration Projects offering free resources and expertise to pilot collaboration projects as part of its Collaborative Data Infrastructure. Research communities, projects and individual researchers are invited to make use of its data services and should apply before 26th February 2014.

Part of the data services referred to in this call are B2SHARE a web-based service for storing and sharing small research data sets, and B2FIND a simple and user-friendly portal to find research data collections stored in EUDAT data centres and other repositories. B2FIND harvests metadata from diverse sources, maps it, and makes it publically available through its cross-disciplinary catalogue. These two services are now fully deployed. Have a look by yourself! More details on EUDAT’s current and future service development and deployment are included in the service Roadmap.

The EUDAT Working groups set up in September 2013 and composed of international experts working together with EUDAT representatives, continue to investigate and discuss potential service solutions in the field of Dynamic Data, Workflows and Semantic Annotation together with an expert group focusing on Data Access and Re-Use Policies (DARUP). As a direct result of EUDAT’s Semantic Annotation Working group, the European Ontology Network (EUON) is being set up to respond to communities’ need to share and coordinate expertise and experience in the European ontology community. EUON will use the B2SHARE service to store and share data.

A fundamental concept and principle behind all of EUDAT’s activities is that Trust is key for data infrastructures and has recently published a position statement on the Value of Data and Trust. It outlines how trusted relations between various actors must be established and context-sensitive trust measures need to be put in place as they are indispensable for the global market of knowledge exchange. One such measure is data management. EUDAT aim to provide a solution that will be affordable, trustworthy, robust, persistent, open and easy to use as outlined in its current position note on open access, open data and data management planning.

Where can you meet us?

There will be many opportunities to engage with EUDAT during the coming months, through the Call for Collaboration Projects or via more informal interactions at different events. View a complete list of events at Meet Us @ and EUDAT Training plans.

For all this and more check out the new look EUDAT web site at www.eudat.eu

On 9th January 2014 a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the two projects

MoU between DCH-RP and ARIADNE

ARIADNE (Advanced Research Infrastructure for Archaeological Dataset Networking in Europe, see the web site http://www.ariadne-infrastructure.eu/), was launched in January 2013 and is financed by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme.

ARIADNE brings together and integrates existing archaeological research data infrastructures so that researchers can use the various distributed datasets and new and powerful technologies as an integral component of the archaeological research methodology.

ARIADNE is enabling trans-national access of researchers to data centres, tools and guidance, and the creation of new Web-based services based on common interfaces to data repositories, availability of reference datasets and usage of innovative technologies. The project will contribute to the creation of a new community of researchers ready to exploit the contribution of Information Technology and to incorporate it in the body of established archaeological research methodology.

Aim of the agreement between ARIADNE and DCH-RP is to promote and support scientific collaboration between the Archaeological research Infrastructures and DCH-RP partners in order to share knowledge in the sector of digital preservation of DCH and to cooperate to the dissemination of the projects’ results.

ARIADNE and DCH-RP will carry out, in cooperation, a Proof of Concept to demonstrate how e-infrastructure can be support the preservation of digital cultural heritage.

Girona, 13-15 October

II Annual Conference of the International Council on Archives

Martin Berendse, President of the International Council on Archives (ICA), warmly invites you to ICA’s 2^nd Annual Conference 2014, being held in Girona on 13-15 October. It is also the 9^th European Conference on Archives and the 13^th Image and Research Seminar and ICA is delighted to be partnering with these respected major Audio-visual and European Archival events to deliver a professional programme addressing such a fascinating topic.

The ICA 2014 Annual Conference Joint Programme Committee is seeking presentations on the following themes:

Cultural and creative industries, and strategies of collaboration with archives
Actions and initiatives
Archives and web portals
Access to information
Digital repositories and authenticity preservation in the Cloud
Open data projects
Business models for digital preservation and custody
175^th Anniversary of Photography

Deadline for proposals: 28th February 2014
Acceptance of proposals: 30th April 2014
Deadline for texts submission (web): 1st September 2014

Further information about how to register and give your presentation is available on the official Annual Conference 2014 website:

View the event published on digitalmeetsculture.net

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Frascati (Rome), 4-6 November 2013

PV 2013 Conference

Pv2013 Objectives

Standards for Archives and Interoperability enabling new added value services

“Ensuring Long-Term Preservation and Adding Value to Scientific and Technical Data” – PV 2013 – welcomes you to its seventh edition. Previous events were held at CNES in Toulouse (PV2002), at ESA-ESRIN in Frascati (PV 2004), at DCC in Edinburgh (PV2005), at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen (PV2007), at ESA-ESAC in Madrid (PV2009) and then again at CNES in Toulouse (PV2011). For its seventh edition, the conference series is back to ESA-ESRIN in Frascati to continue addressing prospects in the domain of scientific and technical data preservation together with value adding to these data.

Scientific data access, comprehension and interoperability is vital to tackle the challenges the scientific community is facing. As an example, certain environmental analysis, like those supporting the long-term climate change variables measurement, requires historical data records to be periodically reprocessed to conform to the latest revisions of scientific understanding and modelling techniques. This in turn requires access to and understanding of the original processing, including scientific papers, algorithm documentation, processing sources code, calibration tables, databases and ancillary datasets.

Proper data management, data description and data curation remain the challenges for building modern archives while keeping in mind their long-term preservation. Coupled with flexible and open software architecture, these are the basis to allow interoperability amongst archives while enabling the development of new added value services and applications on top of existing data, ensuring its higher utilization by end (and new) users.

There will be 4 Sessions focused on these following themes:

Session 1: Ensuring long-term data and knowledge preservation;

Session 2: Adding value to data and facilitation of data use;

Session 3: Data preservation lessons learnt;

Session 4: Future prospects and cooperation.

The DCH-RP project will attend the conference by exposing its poster in the PV2013 poster session.

PV 2013 Program organizing committee

Chairmen:

Mirko Albani, ESA-ESRIN, Roma, Italy
Richard Moreno, CNES, Toulouse, France

Members:

Christophe Arviset, ESA-ESAC, Villafranca del Castillo, Spain
Reta Beebe, NASA/PDS, NMSU, USA
Daniele Boucon, CNES, Toulouse, France
John Faundeen, USGS, Sioux Falls, USA
Francoise Genova, CDS, Strasbourg, France
David Giaretta, Alliance for Permanent Access, The Netherlands
Helen Glaves, NERC/BGS, UK
Rosemarie Leone, ESA-ESRIN, Roma, Italy
Eberhard Mikusch, DLR, Oberpaffenhofen, Germany
Katrin Molch DLR, Oberpaffenhofen, Germany
Harald Rothfuss, EUMETSAT, Darmstadt, Germany
Jamie Shiers, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Thomas Stein, Washington University, USA

Organizing committee

Carmen Comparetto, Congrex, ESA-ESRIN, Roma, Italy

More information:

PV 2013 Official Website: http://www.congrexprojects.com/pv2013/welcome

Sessions of the meeting: http://www.congrexprojects.com/pv2013/sessions

Full Programme will be soon available here

http://www.digitalmeetsculture.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ECsustainable-urban-dynamics_en.pdf

EC brochure “R & I on Sustainable Urban Dynamics”

EC DG for Research and Innovation’s text is now available for download online

EC published the brochure on “Sustainable Urban Dynamics”

EC published the brochure “Research and Innovation on Sustainable Urban Dynamics”. The brochure is the result of a stakeholder workshop organised last year to shed light on the Horizon 2020, Societal Challenge 6 – Inclusive, innovative and reflective societies – chapter on “The promotion of sustainable and inclusive environments through innovative spatial and urban planning and design”.

The workshop took place on 28 March 2013 on the premises of MIUR (Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research) in Rome. 70 researchers, administrators, urban planners and stakeholders from around Europe participated at the seminar.

The item of the workshop complements other R&I activities on urban issues, especially from the Societal Challenge 3 (“Secure, clean and efficient energy”) and the Societal Challenge 4 (“Smart, green and integrated transport”).

Horizon 2020 Challenge 6 is largely dedicated to social sciences and humanities. A budget of 70 billion euros has been proposed for the H2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme. The programme covers the period from 2014 to 2020.

Domenico Rosetti di Valdalbero, Principal Administrator at DG Research and Innovation, led the 28 March’s workshop proceedings. The report was prepared by Mr. Terry Martin, executive director of the science-policy interface agency SPIA, who served as rapporteur for the event.

Special thanks to the Italian Ministry of Research, especially to Federico Cinquepalmi, who hosted the meeting, and APRE, that made this event successful, in particular Diassina Di Maggio, Natalia Morazzo and Keji Adunmo.

The European Commission also acknowledges the excellent collaboration with the Urban Europe JPI during the workshop and its representatives Margit Noll and Paola Clerici Maestosi.

Several Commission DG RTD colleagues helped to make the workshop agenda as complete as possible and should be thanked: Patricia Postigo McLaughlin, Pia Laurila, Heiko Prange-Gstöhl, Cristina Marcuzzo, Marc Goffart and Catherine Lemaire.

Download the brochure – PDF

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Double sided a4 leaflet to present the project and the call for tender

PREFORMA factsheet released

PREFORMA has just released a first factsheet that can be downloaded from the Download section of the website and that can used to raise awareness about the project and to disseminate the call for tender in order to attract new possible applicants.

The factsheet is an easy to understand double sided a4 leaflet.

Click here to download it.

Form more information visit the Tender section of the website

Open Dialogue for the preparation of the PREFORMA tender

PREFORMA aims to ensure the establishment of a process of Open Dialogue between the memory institutions and the technology providers who develop the software. The memory institutions will define the functional requirements of the tender based on the outcome of the Open dialogue.

This process has already started and the following activities have been planned:

The establishment of a task force to build consensus on the preservation formats that will be validated by the PREFORMA toolset, focusing in particular on the audiovisual domain (PDF/A for texts and TIFF/JPEG2000 for still images are already agreed).
An open consultation about the tender to get an understanding of the needs of the individual memory institutions as to conformance checking and agree on a joint user model that integrates all the individual requirements.
The organization of a workshop in Brussels on the 5^th of March 2014 targeted to the memory institutions to agree on the functional requirements and technical specifications of the reference implementation tools to be developed in PREFORMA.
The organisation of a public Information Event in Brussels on the 4^th of April 2014 for exchange and consultation with potential suppliers and to present the PREFORMA call for tender.
The organisation of a networking session at the EGI Community Forum in Helsinki on the 21st of May 2014 as an additional opportunity to present the PREFORMA call for tender to the people attending the event and to collect feedback.

This page will be continuously updated with the progress and the outcomes of this process.

Contact us at info@preforma-project.eu to obtain more information on the procurement or to ask for any specific question. We will make sure that your requests will be forwarded to all the relevant parties and that they will be taken into account in the design of the tender functional requirements and technical specification.

www.preforma-project.eu

PREFORMA website and blog launched!

PREFORMA website is now online at www.preforma-project.eu.

The website contains all information relevant to the project, including updates on the most important activities, contact details, information on how to join the community, and a detailed description of partner institutions and their contributions.

The website is complemented by a project blog hosted in the popular Digital Meets Culture online communication platform. The blog features news, articles and upcoming events related the project – automatically featured also on the website – and it helps to widen the communication of the project towards a larger audience, including both professional and general public.

The project has simultaneously released the tagline that will represent the project together with the logo: Future Memory Standards.

Padua, 13-14 January 2014

PREFORMA Kick-Off Meeting

On January 13th and 14th 2014, the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova will host the PREFORMA Kick-off Meeting.

PREFORMA aims to address the challenge of implementing good quality standardised file formats for preserving data content in the long term. The main objective is to give memory institutions full control of the process of the conformity tests of files to be ingested into archives.

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

The consortium of PREFORMA is composed by 14 partners, from 9 European countries, ranging from the North to the South of the EU. Its good geographic spread is also complemented by a good scientific and technical spread of competences and expertise.

The Swedish National Archives is the coordinator of the project and leads the CSA-Sustainable Network WP. Promoter Srl is the Technical and Communication Coordinator, while the University of Padova is the Scientific Coordinator.

Project website: www.preforma-project.eu

Registration to the kick-off meeting (Reserved to the project partners)