Tutorial 1

Harmonized models for the Digital World CIDOC CRM, FRBROO, CRMDig and Europeana EDM

This tutorial will present a set of rich conceptual models or "core ontologies of relationships" for the digital world that are completely integrated and cover, in a complementary way, a vast spectrum of key conceptualizations for memory institutions and the management of digital content. It is argued that core ontologies of relationships are fundamental to schema integration and play a vital role in practical knowledge management completely different to the role played by specialist terminologies. The vision is not merely to aggregate content with finding aids, as current DLs do, but to integrate digital information into large scale, trans-disciplinary networks of knowledge. These networks will then support not only accessing source documents, but also using and reusing the integrated knowledge embedded in the data and metadata themselves while managing the increasingly complex digital data aggregates and their derivatives.

Firstly, this tutorial we will introduce the audience to the CIDOC Conceptual
Reference Model (CIDOC CRM), a core ontology and ISO standard (ISO  21127:2006) for the semantic integration of cultural heritage information with library, archive and other information. The CIDOC CRM was developed by a Working Group of the International Committee for Documentation (CIDOC) of ICOM. It concentrates on the definition of relationships, rather than terminology, in order to allow for i) homogeneously accessing heterogeneous database schemata and metadata structures, ii) for the migration between such sources and iii) for merging the information they contain. The meaning of its concepts and relationships were constructed by the analysis of hundreds of relevant data structures used by memory institutions, initially from museums. This led to a compact model of 86 classes and 134 relationships, easy to comprehend and suitable for service as a basis for mediation of cultural and library information. The model has recently enjoyed rapid uptake in large-scale information aggregation projects. The tutorial will present the motivations for the model and its overall philosophy. It will present the key concepts as partial models realizing functional aspects of the model, and conclude with application considerations.

The CIDOC CRM, as an effort of the museums community, is paralleled by the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) crafted by IFLA for the library community. Both Working Groups have come together and developed, between 2003 and 2008, a conceptual model capturing the concepts of FRBR as a core ontology (FRBROO), and integrated it with the CRM in a modular way. This process implied adaptations of the CRM itself. The model captures in an ontologically rigorous manner the aggregation of intellectual content by origin and derivation, as intended by FRBR, and formalizes the documentation of performing arts. The model was jointly approved by IFLA and ICOM in 2009. The tutorial will present the key ideas of FRBR and how these have been realized as a formal ontology. It will continue to present the key concepts as partial models realizing functional aspects of the model and describe how CRM and FRBROO complement each other.

In the framework of the European Integrated Projects CASPAR and 3D-COFORM, FORTH has developed "CRMDig", a generic Digital Provenance model. The model has been verified by highly diverse test cases, such as digitization of museum content, documentation of Digital Performances and European Space Agency data. Within 3D-COFORM, the model is being applied to document all stages of the production and reuse of 3D-models from cultural heritage objects and sites, including all kinds of digitization processes and the digitized objects themselves. The project is about to produce and document larger amounts of data, and has yielded already sufficient verification of CRMDig. CRMDig is much richer and more generic than the "Open Provenance Model", the only competitive attempt to generalize Digital Provenance data. The tutorial will present the problem of generic Digital Provenance documentation, the principles and key concepts of the model and give real-life application examples.

Finally, the tutorial will introduce to the Europeana EDM model. Europeana is a very large-scale metadata repository and aggregation service for all kinds of cultural heritage information from Europe. The EDM model will be used as core schema in order to describe the content aggregation and core semantic relationships to be indexed by the service across all kinds of content and metadata. The EDM model reuses elements from Dublin Core, CIDOC CRM, FRBROO and ORE. It provides powerful abstractions even over Dublin Core and CIDOC CRM concepts that will ensure sufficient recall when accessing this vast collection. Europeana will accept CIDOC CRM data as specialization of the EDM, whose description can be completely integrated with DC, CIDOC CRM, FRBRoo and ORE. The tutorial will present the problem of querying metadata at that level of diversity, and the semantic indexing Europeana intends to provide.

Presenters

Martin Doerr has studied mathematics and physics from 1972-1978 and holds a PhD in experimental physics from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. Since 1990 he is Research Director at FORTH. He is head of the Centre for Cultural Informatics, an activity of the Information Systems Lab of FORTH-ICS. He has been leading the development of systems for knowledge representation and terminology, metadata and content management. He has been leading or participating in a series of national and international projects for cultural information systems. He is chair of the working group of ICOM/CIDOC, which is has collaborated with the respective ISO committees to develop ISO21127:2006, a standard for the semantic interoperability of digital cultural information. He is member of the editorial board of the journal Applied Ontology and ACM Journal on Computers and Cultural Heritage. His research interests are ontology engineering, ontology-driven systems and terminology management.

Stephen Derek Stead: BSc (Hons) Archaeological Science, PgD in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Archaeology.  Head of Computing, Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust 85-88; Computing Officer, English Heritage 89-91; Course Leader, MA Computer Applications in Archaeology, and Lecturer in GIS, University of Leicester, 92-94; Consultant, Paveprime Ltd 91-11, specialising in heritage and computer industry logistics and training.  Lecturer in IT, HMP Leicester (91) and Lambeth College (96-97).  Secretary and now Treasurer, Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology conference.  Vice Chair, 2001-07 and Treasurer 2010-13 CIDOC, Research Co-ordinator and now Chair, Archaeological Sites Working Group, CIDOC.