Dr Paul MillerDr Paul MillerInteroperability FocusInteroperability Focus

p.miller@ukoln.ac.ukp.miller@ukoln.ac.ukwww.ukoln.ac.uk/www.ukoln.ac.uk/

Delivering Heritage to Delivering Heritage to the Peoplethe People— a UK perspective— a UK perspective

See www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/See www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/

We are here…We are here…

What is Nordic Heritage ?

Nordic Heritage is…

PhysicalTangibleEnrichingInclusiveNationalFor usFiniteValuable

DigitalEphemeral

UncomfortableDivisive

InternationalFor our childrenEver-expanding

Expensive

Nordic Heritage is…

Valuing Culture…?Cultural memory, which is documented in the collections of museums, libraries and archives throughout the world, is a vital part of the human endeavour. It represents the knowledge accumulated through the generations, and enables humanity to build on the achievements of those who have gone before us. Cultural memory:

• Benefits individuals, by promoting a sense of identity through shared cultural values and by supporting the quest for lifelong learning;

• Benefits communities, by promoting economic prosperity and fostering the understanding that leads to a civil and just society; and

• Benefits humanity as a whole, by promoting the values we share as global citizens and by increasing our capacity to connect with one another to meet universal challenges.

Museums, libraries and archives—often called memory institutions—are trusted organizations that collectively document the entire range of human experience and expression. Memory institutions are engaged in the important work of:

• Capturing, authenticating, and making sense of cultural memory; • Preserving the human record for future generations; and • Sharing knowledge to support education and learning.

See www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/ccs/positions/ See www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/ccs/positions/

“

”

Trustees of the Heritage

Memory Institutions

Museums & Galleries, Libraries, Archives…• Hold the memory of the Nation in trust• Actively interpret• (Usually) under sell themselves• Possibly perpetuate organisational

structures irrelevant to the user• Offer a ‘human’ side of Government ?

Some facts

In the UK, more people visit museums than go to theme parks and pop concerts

Visiting libraries is more popular than going to the cinema

There are over 4,000 public library branches in the UK• The vast majority will be connected to

the ‘Peoples Network’ by 2003• 70% already are.

Moving Online

Culture Online

Placed online, large parts of our Culture can become:

• available to the Nation/Continent/World, 24/7• accessible• ‘democratised’, and available equally to

the inhabitants of Reykjavik, and of a small village on the Outer Hebrides

• a powerful advert for Europe• comparable to similar resources from

elsewhere• viable as enablers and facilitators of

Learning, both formal and lifelong.

Some assumptions

• Having access to digital surrogates of cultural heritage material is ‘useful’ and desirable

• The public sector has a role to play in this, beyond simply granting digitisation rights to Microsoft

• Availability of regional/national/international corpora of material is more useful to the user than hundreds or thousands of individual sites

• Metadata is key to making the vision reality.

What is Metadata?

What is ‘Metadata’?

– meaningless jargon

– ora fashionable, and terribly misused, term for what we’ve always done

– or“a means of turning data into information”

– and“data about data”

– andthe name of a person (‘Leif Eriksson’)

– andthe title of a book (‘Njal’s Saga’).

What is ‘Metadata’?

Metadata may be applied to almost anything;• People• Places• Objects• Concepts• Web pages• Databases.

What is ‘Metadata’?

Resource Discovery Metadata fulfils three main functions;• Description of resource content

– “What is it?”

• Description of resource form– “How is it constructed?”

• Description of resource use– “Can I afford it?”.

‘Metadata’ is

Cataloguing made cool• But still a bit geeky?

An important driver for the information economy ?

A panacea in the battle against information overload ?

Potentially useful as an affordable and cost–effective means of unlocking a wealth of resources ?.

Some assumptions

• Having access to digital surrogates of cultural heritage material is ‘useful’ and desirable

• The public sector has a role to play in this, beyond simply granting digitisation rights to Microsoft

• Availability of regional/national/international corpora of material is more useful to the user than hundreds or thousands of individual sites

• Metadata is key to making the vision reality.

Some more assumptions

• Distribution is better than centralisation• Portals are good• Thick portals are better• A single portal is bad• Shared middleware services play a

key role• The problem is bigger than the UK

or Europe.

Internationalisation

Level 7An activity in need of a name!An activity in need of a name!Organised with support from CIMI and ResourceOrganised with support from CIMI and ResourceRecognised growing synergies between content Recognised growing synergies between content

creation activities globallycreation activities globallyGathered funders and programme managers in Gathered funders and programme managers in

LondonLondonReported in issue 5 of Reported in issue 5 of Cultivate InteractiveCultivate Interactive..

See www.cultivate-int.org/issue5/See www.cultivate-int.org/issue5/

The Cultural Content Forum !

Met in Washington in MarchMet in Washington in March

around 40 representatives from Europe, Canada, USA, around 40 representatives from Europe, Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand and TaiwanAustralia, New Zealand and Taiwan

Clear interest in a Clear interest in a user focususer focus

new work item to gather and explore existing user new work item to gather and explore existing user evaluation work, in order to develop a better picture of evaluation work, in order to develop a better picture of what users wantwhat users want

Reported in issue 7 of Reported in issue 7 of Cultivate InteractiveCultivate Interactive..

See www.cultivate-int.org/issue7/washington/See www.cultivate-int.org/issue7/washington/

Standardisation

Common Standards

Commonality of approach enables interoperability, and facilitates access.

Good standardisation is a foundation for good service, not a straitjacket to innovation

Increasing moves towards common standards and guidelines

NOF-digi

JISC

Canadian Cultural Content Initiative

e-GIF

RLG Cultural Materials Initiative

NINCH G2GP

etc.

Common Standards

Work underway to standardise/harmonise• Resource capture/creation• Resource description• Resource discovery• Resource use• Resource reuse• Resource preservation• etc

Best/Good Practice and Community Building as important… if not more…

Metadata for Education

Metadata for Education Group (MEG)•open forum for debating the description and provision of educational resources at all educational levels across the United Kingdom

•Founded upon a set of fundamental principles enshrined in the MEG Concord

•intends to establish itself as an authority in the application of descriptive metadata to predominantly UK educational resources

•seeks to become the first point of call for policy questions.

See www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/education/See www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/education/

The MEG Concord

The MEG Concord

See www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/education/documents/concord.html

See www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/education/documents/concord.html

Discovering Content

Web Web Web Web Web

Content(local andremote)

End-user

• Many different services

• Each has own user interface

• Each has a learning curve

The current picture

Slide by Andy Powell of UKOLN

Towards an Architecture

Need for contextualisation

What are people doing• And what are the best technologies to

help them?

How can we move towards the appearance of seamless service?

No one-fit solution.

See www.dner.ac.uk/arch/ See www.dner.ac.uk/arch/

Towards an architectureSearch

• Z39.50 and the Bath Profile

Harvest• OAI

Alert• RSS

Shared Middleware Services• Authenticate,

Authorise, Collection Description, User Preference, Institutional Preference…

See www.dner.ac.uk/arch/ See www.dner.ac.uk/arch/

Dublin Core

JISC’s Information Environment

Broker/Aggregator

Portal Portal

Content providers

End-user

Portal

Broker/Aggregator

Authentication

Authorisation

Collect’n Desc

Service Desc

Resolver

Inst’n Profile

Shared services

Provisionlayer

Fusionlayer

Presentationlayer

Slide by Andy Powell of UKOLN

publishingtools

sharedservices

portals

content

brokersand

aggregators

Architectural summaryprovision

fusioninfrastructure

presentation

registriesterminologyindexingresolutionauthenticationauthorisationcitation linking

m2m

Slide by Andy Powell of UKOLN

Building the IE

Construction of various Portals in the Presentation Layer• ‘JISC Portal’ ?• Data Centre Portals (EDINA, MIMAS…)• Subject Portals (the RDN, ADS, etc.)• Data Type Portals (images, movies, sound…)• Institutional Portals• Personal Portals (Paul’s web!)

Also providing other access to discrete resources.

See www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/ See www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/

National or Local?

JISC building various national services, including portals

Institutions also building portals, Managed/Virtual Learning Environments, myLibrary services, etc.

Where do we see the role for all?

need to escape from e-, and reach u-.

See www.rdn.ac.uk/ See www.rdn.ac.uk/

See digital.hull.ac.uk/ See digital.hull.ac.uk/

See www.cultureonline.gov.uk/ See www.cultureonline.gov.uk/

Culture Online

• Announced September 2000

“Culture Online’s remit would be to use digital technologies to widen access to the resources of the arts and cultural sector, for the purposes of learning and enjoyment both at school and throughout life.”

• Building directly upon NOF, and the lessons it teaches

• Call closes today for initial expressions of interest.

See www.cultureonline.gov.uk/See www.cultureonline.gov.uk/

See www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/ See www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/

Curriculum Online“The vision for Curriculum Online is to give teachers easy online access to a wide range of digital learning materials, which they can use to support their teaching across the curriculum. These materials will form a consistent, coherent and comprehensive educational service for teachers and pupils. ”

• £50,000,000 investment in content and services for first year

• Schools have ‘learning credits’, to purchase content

• Portal launches in September.

See www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/ See www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/

‘Networks’ for Cultural Content

See www.rcahms.gov.uk/ See www.rcahms.gov.uk/

See ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/ See ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/

See www.scran.ac.uk/ See www.scran.ac.uk/

See ads.ahds.ac.uk/heirport/ See ads.ahds.ac.uk/heirport/

Reaching the Citizen…

Government“to make the UK the best environment in the

world for e-commerce by 2002 to ensure that everyone who wants it has

access to the internet by 2005 to make all government services available

electronically by 2005” • Focus upon services• Focus upon the citizen• Focus upon the Joined Up approach• Recognition of multi–channel architecture

?

See www.e-envoy.gov.uk/publications/int_comparisons.htmSee www.e-envoy.gov.uk/publications/int_comparisons.htm

From Project Plan for the Development of e-commerce and e-government 2000-2002

From Project Plan for the Development of e-commerce and e-government 2000-2002

Focus on services

Deliver services to the citizen• Services rather than resources

– ‘transactional’ web sites

• Not just about finding documents on a web site

• Change of address service;–https://www.addressingthechange.com–www.ihavemoved.com/–www.simplymove.co.uk/.

See www.gateway.gov.uk/See www.gateway.gov.uk/

Focus on the Citizen

Move away from the ‘silo mentality’• Citizens need/want access

to information/services/resources– These exist in different parts of local and

national government, organised according to internal needs or procedures, and packaged according to particular house styles and conventions

– None of which helps the citizen who just wants a new wheely bin (a.k.a ‘Garbage can’/ ‘trash can’/ ‘dumpster’ ?)

See www.ukonline.gov.uk/See www.ukonline.gov.uk/

Recognise a multi–channel future

The web is not the only game in town…• Mobile phones/ WAP/ 3G• PDAs• Digital TV• Telephone call centres• One stop shop drop–in centres• High street information kiosks• The Post Office• Banks• Traditional access mechanisms

So… create content once for largely automated repackaging and repurposing• XML Schema/ XSL, etc… .

The e–GIF

• e–Government Interoperability Framework• Technical standards and policies at the heart

of e–Government• Conformance is mandatory across the Public

Sector• Adoption of Internet and Web standards across

government• XML/XSL, plus government–specific schemas

• Change of Address service, for example, utilises XML Schemas to pass details between participants.

See www.govtalk.gov.uk/See www.govtalk.gov.uk/

The e–GIF

• e–Government Interoperability Framework• Version 4 released in April• Incorporates Metadata Framework (Dublin

Core), the UK Government Metadata Element Set, and the Government Category List

• Under consideration for EC/ EU use.

See www.govtalk.gov.uk/See www.govtalk.gov.uk/

Generalising a model…

A premiseWe want to provide useful services to

our users.• These should be

– Usable– Functional– Fit-for-purpose

– yet cool and attractive

– Sustainable– Interoperable

• And could be– Informational– Transactional

Technical standards are the dull but necessary reality for making this happen.

In search of solutions…

A common approach• Mandated as a condition of grant?

– nof–digi technical standards and guidelines– Although evidence of voluntary adoption…

– DNER Learning & Teaching Programme technical guidelines– Canadian Digital Cultural Content Initiative technical guidelines– e–GIF

An open approach– Avoidance of proprietary solutions– Based on emerging or established standards– XML based. Mappable to Dublin Core….

A consensus–based approach• Need community adoption and

understanding• Data creators and providers need a

sense of ownership

An evolutionary approach• Channels• New standards• New user requirements• Remember preservation.

In search of solutions…

An architecture

Integrated information environment is complex• An overarching architecture helps to

place individual features in context– searching– harvesting– alerting– Shared middleware– Common identifiers, etc.

See www.dner.ac.uk/architecture/See www.dner.ac.uk/architecture/

Part of a model

Placing detailed descriptions of all cultural artefacts online infeasible?• Expensive• A big job!• Leads to information overload

Collection Level Description a way forward• Pointers into collections• Easier to harmonise across domains• Achievable.

See www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/See www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/

The Big Issue(s)

Language• Whether ‘technical’ or vernacular

Terminological control• Shared subject terms

Certification/ Authenticity• How do I know it’s an authoritative description of

the Mona Lisa ?

Infrastructure• How to enable cross–search?

Meeting the requirements of new users• Largely let down by our current offerings.

See www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue29/miller/See www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue29/miller/

Conclusions

Conclusions•The Heritage matters

• a digitised Heritage may be exploited in new ways, by new and old markets

•Effective exploitation requires• Cooperation, collaboration, and consensus building• shared vision• new ways of working• institutional and organisational change

– is ‘library’ a meaningful concept to the learner?

– is ‘museum’?

• an interoperable technical base

•We need to be responsive to the needs of our users• cultural tourist, student, lifelong learner,

professional… .

Dr Paul MillerDr Paul MillerInteroperability FocusInteroperability Focus

p.miller@ukoln.ac.ukp.miller@ukoln.ac.ukwww.ukoln.ac.uk/www.ukoln.ac.uk/

Delivering Heritage to Delivering Heritage to the Peoplethe People— a UK perspective— a UK perspective