The DEER

Distributed European

Electronic Resource

Dr Suzanne Keene

Francesca Monti

University College London

The DEER report covers:1. INTRODUCTION

2. DEFINING THE DEER

3. DEER PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES

4. RESOURCES

5. TECHNOLOGIES

6. OPTIONS FOR DEER ORGANISATION AND MANAGEMENT

7. FINANCIAL OPTIONS

8. LEGAL FRAMEWORK, GUIDELINES AND STANDARDS

9. IMPLEMENTATION

10. CONCLUSIONS

APPENDIX A: SOME CULTURAL NETWORKS

DEER visionAccess toall European networked cultural content

Provide users with a view of and access to our rich and varied cultural landscapes, in a multilingual and multicultural information environment

Why a DEER? Culture is the core of European identity

and identities ICT Europe’s second most important

economic sector(is tourism the first??)

ICT + cultural material = a key means of enhancing European competitiveness

Defining the DEER

DEER principles– Overarching - ultimately, Europe’s digital cultural memory– Unity and diversity - enjoying Europe’s diverse cultures– Multilingual - as far as practicable– Communication, creativity and joint working - forum for

participation and collaborative research– Visionary and forward looking - using advanced

technologies– Permanent - through principles of digital preservation– Multinational - distributed repositories, national committees– Interoperable - an environment for a distributed resource– Bring users to the foreground - market + user research– Education and learning - for higher education and for all

The DEER audience

Higher education & research The general public, lifelong

learners Public sector organisations Commercial companies

seeking content Tourist industry

The DEER components

DEER components

DEERDEER Content indistributedrepositories

Content indistributedrepositories

Virtual AgoráVirtual Agorá

VirtualReference

Room

VirtualReference

Room

Infrastructure: the cultural GRID?

Interface design

The Virtual Reference Room The portals for the DEER Personalisation and collaboration Search & discovery tools Meta resources:

• Cultural ontologies• Cross referenced bibliographical material• Subject gateways• Discovery tools• Multilingual tools

Web service software for combining resources from different sources, eg the DACO

The content of the DEER Initial target users: higher

education, research Primary sources: digitised

documents, books Research data sets 3D, VR representations Software tools: learning &

teaching

The Virtual Agorá

Forum for learning + teaching

Software toolsTailored content

Virtual ForumBulletin boards

Contacts directoryTranslating tools

On-line evaluationUser input

Augmented real Agorá

Events noticeboardActual events

Remote participation

Online publication

The DEER technical requirements

Technical requirements

High bandwidth communications infrastructure Web services & middleware for cultural content

management Distributed information repositories (national) Excellent user friendly portal(s) for multilingual,

multicultural access Technologies for interactive working: Agorá etc.

The DEER system

A very large distributed knowledge management system

Requires the entire chain of cultural content management, from creation to delivery to end users

A cultural GRID

Historical content

Knowledge system architecture

Information repositories

VR content + tools

Tools for access + delivery

Distribution + exploitation

Users, channels, devices

Archival store preservationVersions: Original, Preservation,

Dissemination, Metadata store

User access storeMetadata + ontology databases

Content files for delivery to users

Content providers

Metadata engine

Application

Metadata engine

Presentation+ delivery

DiscoveryDelivery

Userrequest

Tools for user input

Offsitestorage

Backup

Operating the DEER

Organisational modelsCentral, top down(JISC)

Distributed consortium(CULTIVATE)

secretariat

National/specialistmatrix(ICOM)

SC

SC SC SC

SC

Exec.Council

Specialist committees

Nationalcommittees

SecretaryGeneral

ICOM modelPolicy making body(s)Executive, Advisory

Secretariat

National Committees

Affiliated Bodies + Regional

Groups

SpecialistCommittees

ICOM governing bodies Advisory Committee: = chairpersons of

National and International (Specialist) committees (themselves elected)

Elections to Executive Committee by designated voting members of each National and Specialist Committee, plus (few) reps. of Affiliated Organisations

Some essential DEER policies Content - what’s in / out of scope? Financing - by what route? Management - how the whole organisation

is run: elected / appointed government? Centralisation vs. distribution Multilingualism - to what extent? Uses and users - priorities, which groups?

Funding the DEERFour funding models explored: Designated central funding

– eg, GRID programme: over >1 FP “Serendipitous” project funding by bids

– eg, 6th FP: broad priorities Membership subscription

– eg, ICOM Commercial not-for-profit

– eg, AMICO, SCRAN

Financing the DEER

% Deer funding

requirement

Time

Central funding

Other funding sources

Legal + standards framework Within Euro legal framework DEER Legal entity: EEIG? Other? Copyright + intellectual property rights

(!!!) Rights management of content +

resources

Managing access to content ‘Common access agreement’ Creative Commons licenses:

– Retain copyright and control over use of content but allow free public domain access / designated uses

Data protection legislation

Standards Communication and network Authentication Identification Browser software Content Metadata Terminology

Software standards Open source / free software where

possible

– eg, Linux

Conclusions The DEER: not just an option, becoming

a necessity A cultural GRID for Europe A practical possibility Provide the organisational framework to

consolidate the benefits of previous and present investment in cultural IST