Europeana Cloud: The Project and the Challenges of Assessing Researchers' Needs in the Cloud and Ensuring Community Engagement

1. Europeana Cloud: The Project and the Challenges of Assessing
Researchers' Needs in the Cloud and Ensuring Community Engagement
Alastair Dunning (The European Library) & Agiatis Benardou (Digital Curation Unit, ATHENA R.C.)
http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-cloud
#cloud_EU / @europeana_cloud

2. Project Details
Start Date – February 2013
End Date – January 2016
Total Project Cost – 4.75m Euros
EU Funding Contributing 3.8m Euros (80%)
Matched Funding 950k (20k)
co-funded by the
CIP-ICT Policy Support Programme
http://ec.europa.eu/ict_psp
CIP-ICT-PSP-2012-6 - Project number 325091
the author is solely responsible for it and that it does not represent the opinion of the Community and that the Community is not responsible for any use
that might be made of information contained therein

3. 7 Work Packages
WP1 - Assessing Researcher Needs in the Cloud and Ensuring Community Engagement,
Agiatis Benardou (Digital Curation Unit, Athens)
WP2 - Developing the Infrastructure for Europeana Cloud, Pavel Kats
(Europeana Foundation, The Hague)
WP3 - Exploiting Europeana Cloud with services and tools for researchers, Erik Duval
(University of Leuven, Belgium)
WP4 - Ingestion of Content and Metadata Development, Marian Lefferts
(Consortium for European Research Libraries, The Hague)
WP5 - Sustaining the Europeana Cloud: Legal, Strategic and Economic Issues Julia Fallon
(Europeana Foundation, The Hague)
WP6 - Dissemination and Networking, Martin Moyle (University College London)
WP7 - Project Management, Mary Rowlatt (MDR Partners, UK)
Project Coordination, Alastair Dunning (The European Library, The Hague)

4. 35 Partners
1 Stitching Foundation (Europeana Foundation), Netherlands
2 Ariadne Foundation, Belgium
3 Athena Research and Innovation Centre, Greece
4 Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library), Germany
5 Central and East European Online Library (CEOOL), Germany
6 Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL), United Kingdom
7 Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche (National Research Council), Italy
8 Debreceni Egyetem (University of Debrecen), Hungary
9 Fundación Dialnet (Dialnet Foundation), Spain
10 Hrvatska Akademija Znanosti I Umjetnosti (Croatian Academy for
Science and Arts), Croatia

5. 35 Partners
11 Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Nationalbibliotek Og Kobenhavns
Universitetsbibliotek, (Royal Library and National Library of Copenhagen
University), Denmark
12 Stichting Nederland Kennisland (Kennisland), Netherlands
13 Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie Van Wetenschappen, KNAW (Royal Dutch
Academy for Science), Netherlands
14 Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Catholic University of Leuven), Belgium
15 Stichting LIBER (LIBER Foundation), Netherlands
16 Cinecitta' Luce Spa , Italy
17 MDR Partners, United Kingdom
18 Kansallisarkisto (Finnish National Archives), Finland
19 Llyfrgellgenedlaethol Cymru (National Library of Wales), United Kingdom
20 Narodni Technicka Knihovna (National Technical Library), Czech Republic

6. 35 Partners
21 Stichting OAPEN (OAPEN Foundation), Netherlands
22 Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland (OKF-DE), Germany
23 The Open University, United Kingdom
24 Instytut Chemii Bioorganicznej Pan (Institute of Bioorganic
Chemistry), Poland
25 Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
26 Stichting Katholieke Universiteit Brabant Universiteit Van Tilburg
(Tilburg University), Netherlands
27 University College London United Kingdom
28 The University Of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
29 Goeteborgs Universitet (Gothenburg University), Sweden
30 Universite Libre De Bruxelles (Free University of Brussels), Belgium

7. 35 Partners
31 Universitaet Bielefeld (University of Bielefeld), Germany
32 University Of Patras, Greece
33 Stichting Vu-Vumc (Free University of Amsterdam), Netherlands
Unfunded Partners:
34 University of Sibiu, Romania
35 DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities)

8. Current situation for metadata aggregation
Europeana
Aggregator
Aggregator

9. The relationship is not reciprocal, it is costly and unsustainable
Europeana
Aggregator
Aggregator

10. Europeana Cloud project tries to rethink this situation
Europeana
Polish Digital Libraries
Federation
Polish Digital Library
The European Library

11. Ease
o
f s ha
s
ion
t
ega ?
r
agg bers
Sub em
m
for
ring?
Europeana
Polish Digital Libraries
Federation
Sha
re d
a
dat
d
che l?
i
Enr ntia
e
pot
The European Library
Co s
t re
sto
ra g
e?
duc
tion
?

12. Who are the partners?
3 ag
greg
ator
s
Europeana
Polish Digital Libraries
Federation
20 c
o
prov ntent
iders
The
European
Library
12 strategic /
er s
technical partn

13. Build
infra a techni
ca
struc
ture l
What will they be doing?
M
2.4 M
ta ( t ( 5
a
tad nten
e
t m d co
s
nge s) an
I
item s)
item
Europeana
gal
le
n a rk
ig
Des ewo
fram
Polish Digital Libraries
Federation
tin
iga
t
ves
In
s
pos
g
e
ble
i
f
The
European
Library
s
cie
n
icie
f
Esta
term blishin
con g Lon
s en
g
sus
Def
i
of e ne the
nga
p
gem rincip
les
ent

14. But that is not all!

15. We will also investigate how we can build end-user services on
top of this infrastructure
t
ten
Co n
ata
&D
rs
rche
a
Rese
In particular for researchers in
humanities and social sciences

16. In scope for the project (Europeana Research):
&
ent
ont
C
R
na
pea
o
Eur form
t
Pla
ata
D
”
QL
R
PA
“S
Services
Tools
I”
AP
“
o
nn
“A
l”
rta
o
“P
n”
ti o
ta
h
a rc
ese

17. To allow others to build apps and
services on
s
strie
u
e ind
iv
reat
C
GLAM

18. Imagined Case Studies – what could a cloud
infrastructure do
Storage and Back-up:
Different nodes
within the cloud
would act as back up
for each member. If
your node was
unavailable there
would always be
another copy
available else where

19. Imagined Case Studies – what could a cloud
infrastructure do
Format Shifting:
All (or some) content
in the cloud in a
particular format
could be migrated to
a new standard

20. Imagined Case Studies – what could a cloud
infrastructure do
Access Interfaces (I):
Developers or
publishers could
work with specific
themes of content
(e.g. WW2, history of
science, fashion)
related to all
members’ content in
the cloud

21. Imagined Case Studies – what could a cloud
infrastructure do
Access Interfaces (II)
Content not yet in
public domain could
be made available to
restricted
communities –
depends on
authentication
system adopted.

22. Imagined Case Studies – what could a cloud
infrastructure do
Tools and Services:
Related content from
different members
could be made
available for
transcription,
annotation,
visualisation

23. WP 1 Objectives
To identify and define the Humanities and Social Sciences research communities that will be
To identify and define the Humanities and Social Sciences research communities that will be
supported via the Europeana Cloud
supported via the Europeana Cloud
To develop an effective research content strategy for Europeana, based on an evidenceTo develop an effective research content strategy for Europeana, based on an evidencebased account of usefulness of Europeana and The European Library resources for research
based account of usefulness of Europeana and The European Library resources for research
in the Humanities and Social Sciences
in the Humanities and Social Sciences
To improve the understanding of digital tools, research processes and content used in the
To improve the understanding of digital tools, research processes and content used in the
Humanities and Social Sciences, thus informing the development of tools and aggregation of
Humanities and Social Sciences, thus informing the development of tools and aggregation of
content in the Europeana Cloud
content in the Europeana Cloud
To actively engage the Humanities and Social Sciences research communities in
To actively engage the Humanities and Social Sciences research communities in
establishing user requirements for the development of Europeana Cloud
establishing user requirements for the development of Europeana Cloud

24. WP1: Tasks Overview

25. Task
Objective
1.1
Humanities and Social Sciences Research Communities
Advisory Board
1.2
Developing a Content Strategy for Europeana Research
1.3
Research user requirements for Europeana: digital research
practices, tools and content
1.4
Research Community Engagement: Expert Forums
1.5
Research Community User Evaluation

26. The Research Communities Advisory Board
(RCAB)
Prof. Rob Kitchin [Director, National Institute of
Regional and Spatial Analysis]
Prof Karina Van Dalen-Oskam [The Huygens
Institute for the History of the Netherlands]
Dr. Leif Isaksen [Lecturer in Digital Humanities,
University of Southampton]

27. Developing a Content Strategy for
Europeana Research - Aims
1. Matching of the existing content in Europeana and
The European Library to the Humanities and Social
Sciences research communities
2. Informing the ingestion of content from
existing providers into Europeana during the course of
the project
3. Development of a content strategy

28. Research user requirements for Europeana:
digital research practices, tools and content
Desk research: digital research practices and
digital tools state of the art
Research Communities web survey
Identification and creation of Humanities and
Social Sciences case studies
User requirements analysis

29. Research Communities web survey
[June – September 2013]
http://surveys.dcu.gr/index.php
/survey/index/sid/423471/newte
st/Y/lang/en

30. Research Community
Engagement: Expert
Forums
Case Studies Expert Forum
Tools and Content for
Humanities and Social
Sciences Research Expert
Forums
Future Recommendation
Workshop

31. http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-cloud
#cloud_EU / @europeana_cloud
Image Credit: De molen bij Wijk bij Duurstede, Jacob Van Ruisdael, Rijksmuseum, c.1669
http://europeana.eu/portal/record/90402/79D60E4547FFE444D9AA17666E07955F7EBC0771.html