1. Work Package 1
Agiatis Benardou, Digital Curation Unit, “ATHENA” R.C.
Athens, March 19th
2014

2. WP1 Objectives
To identify and define the Humanities and Social Sciences research communities
that will be supported via the Europeana Cloud
To identify and define the Humanities and Social Sciences research communities
that will be supported via the Europeana Cloud
To develop an effective research content strategy for Europeana, based on an
evidence-based account of usefulness of Europeana and The European Library
resources for research in the Humanities and Social Sciences
To develop an effective research content strategy for Europeana, based on an
evidence-based account of usefulness of Europeana and The European Library
resources for research in the Humanities and Social Sciences
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 content in the Europeana Cloud
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 content in the Europeana Cloud
To actively engage the Humanities and Social Sciences research communities in
establishing user requirements for the development of Europeana Cloud
To actively engage the Humanities and Social Sciences research communities in
establishing user requirements for the development of Europeana Cloud

3. Research Communities Identification
Aim:
to identify and define
groups of researchers working in a
common subject domain that is
either part of the Humanities or
Social Sciences, who use similar
computational methods to create,
analyse and disseminate a certain
content type of a digital resource that
will be supported via Europeana
Cloud.

4. The Humanities Communities
Archaeology
History
Law
Linguistics
Musicology
Philosophy

5. The Social Sciences Communities
Economic & Social
History
Sociology
Political Science
Human/Economic/Political
/Cultural Geography
Gender Studies
(Social) Anthropology

6. The Research Communities Advisory
Board
Leif Isaksen, Lecturer in Digital Humanities, University of
Southampton
Rob Kitchin, Professor of Geography, NUI Maynooth
Karina van Dalen-Oskam, Professor of Computational Literary
Studies, University of Amsterdam

7. State of the art on scholarly content use
•Increasingly greater engagement of
humanists and socials scientists with
digital content.
•New trend of several European
initiatives aiming for online, free access
to dispersed resources.
•Significant impact of digital content in
the traditional speed of the research
practices.
•Issues of Metadata, Copyright,
Enhanced Access and Enlarged Digital
Collections when dealing with data.

8. Digital research practices/digital tools
•Apparent disciplinary differences on
the measure of engagement of
humanists and social scientists with
digital research practices.
•Online working and tools that can be
accessed online via a web browser are
fundamental to the concept of a Cloud
system.
•Essential Cross-links of Research
Practices and Tools indicates their
interaction in the scholarly lifecycle.
• Enhanced abilities for Searching,
Collecting, Analysing, Disseminating
and Collaborating provided by new
digital methods via innovative digital
tools.

9. The Research Communities Web
Survey
Participants - Primary field
9

10. Structure and content of the survey
10

11. 41,38%
48,28%
10,34%
Frequencyof use of the Europeana
Portal
Never
A few times
At least once a month
1 = not at all
2 = somewhat
3 = moderately
4 = very
5 = extremely

12. 12
1 = not at all
2 = somewhat
3 = moderately
4 = very
5 = extremely

13. 13
1 = not at all
2 = somewhat
3 = moderately
4 = very
5 = extremely

14. 14
1 = not at all
2 = somewhat
3 = moderately
4 = very
5 = extremely

15. User Engagement I: Liaison with EU
Infrastructures and Networks

16. Further Work: The DARIAH-EU Survey
16

17. User Engagement II: The Expert Forums
•Case Studies (Dublin, June
2013)
•Tools and Content for Social
Sciences Research
(Gothenburg, October 2013)
•Tools and Content for
Humanities Research
(Amsterdam, November 2013)

18. Expert Fora Reports
Key Recommendations:
• user ranking of metadata (encouragement of contributors for
complete metadata); functionality for adding annotations, comments,
and user-enhanced metadata to records (Social Sciences);
• more transparent citation methods (Social Sciences);
• multi-lingual resources (translational services) (History,
Archaeology);
• improvements on date ranges (History, Archaeology);
• spatial and temporal mappings of results (History, Archaeology);
• refined search functionality and additional filters (Humanities);
• an approach to additional content that focuses on quality in few
areas/subjects/topics rather than quantity in many; moving from
exploration and discovery to in-depth descriptions and
interconnectedness (Humanities);
• stepping up development for interaction and connection with users /
user groups (Humanities).

19. User Engagement III: Conferences
Cultural Heritage
Creative Tools and
Archives Workshop,
Copenhagen,
June 2013

20. User Engagement III: Conferences

21. User Engagement III: Conferences

22. User Engagement III: Conferences

23. Moving towards Europeana Research?
Our user –centred approach revealed considerable differences in
the research methods and tools employed by various research
communities, as well as their interaction with the content.
Our user –centred approach revealed considerable differences in
the research methods and tools employed by various research
communities, as well as their interaction with the content.
Need for sur-mesure, tools to annotate, organize, visualize,
enrich, disseminate Europeana/TEL content in accordance with
personal or collaborative work.
Need for sur-mesure, tools to annotate, organize, visualize,
enrich, disseminate Europeana/TEL content in accordance with
personal or collaborative work.
Europeana Research will allow export of data, but primarily be a
platform for others to build tools on top of the existing and ever-
expanding content.
Europeana Research will allow export of data, but primarily be a
platform for others to build tools on top of the existing and ever-
expanding content.

24. Where do we go from here?
•Matching Europeana Content to Research
Communities
•Content Strategy Development
•User Requirements in the Humanities and
the Social Sciences
•Tools Evaluation in collaboration with WP3
•Further ensuring community engagement
•Moving closer to the Europeana Research
platform

25. Thanks for
listening!
Learn more
about our project:
@europeana_cloud #cloud_EU
www.pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana.cloud
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