Research and Development

Goal

VASARI provides the development of an innovative technological platform that integrates and makes accessible the cultural content, the data of the visits and those of context and physical space sensing the belonging to the different sites and museums, in order to:

• to allow unified access to the artistic heritage;
• to keep track of visitor-work interactions;
• to measure and understand cultural enjoyment habits;
• interpreting the data collected by sensors, to obtain context and environmental information.

Purpose

To develop a completely new services, both for visitors and cultural institutions:

• to create new solutions aimed at strengthening and broadening knowledge and access to cultural heritage, encouraging the mobility of people for cultural purposes, creating also the premises for the development of a territorial economy linked to tourist flows;
• to create knowledge models and tools to assess the impact on cultural fruition;
• experimenting models of city-work interaction to promote the sustainable development of the cultural economy open to small and medium-sized enterprises;
• coordination and integration with Project initiatives addressing the theme of accessibility of cultural heritage content to a public with functional limitations.

In addition, VASARI is an open platform, created to promote the development of new services from third parties and to bring ICT innovation to all institutions, even the minor ones that have been excluded from the process of digitisation until now.

Context

As part of an ever-increasing national strategy for the enhancement of the immense artistic and cultural heritage, the VASARI project sets the latest innovations in digital technologies to radically change the activities of Valorization, enjoyment and management of artworks, for both museums and open-air.

The goal is a paradigm shift: to build a new cultural space in which the physical spaces of museums and historical sites with their patrimony of works are integrated into the digital space of Cultural and interconnected content and services in a multi-site logic.

The visitor and the works are at the center of this space where knowledge, fruition and participation of citizens and tourists is encouraged, while the management, the enhancement and the cooperation of cultural institutions is facilitated.

Impacts

VASARI intends to maximise the social and economic impacts linked to the enhancement of the artistic patrimony: the artwork becomes a powerful social aggregator and the visitor is involved in his own process of knowledge that controls directly and continues to develop incrementally thanks to the multiplicity of sites and museums interconnected to the platform.

The proposal emphasizes the need for integration between the physical space and the corresponding digital space of each museum in stark contrast with recent attempts to build digital platforms that favour a passive navigation of the only cultural content.

In VASARI, only through the on-site visit the visitor has access to the vast ecosystem of digital services and content that promotes cultural tourism on the territory, thus encouraging the development of a territorial economy of the support industries.

In addition, the VASARI platform will be designed to be open and promote the development of an economy based on SMEs specializing in the provision of cultural services linked to the heritage of its territory (associations, guides, cultural publishing).

Partners

• Santer Reply SpA (Coordinator)
• @CULT Srl
• Databenc S.c.a.r.l
• Heritage Srl
• Illogic Srl
• Officine Rambaldi Srl
• Risorse Srl
• Polytechnic University of Bari (National Interuniversity Consortium for Informatics - CINI)
• University of L'Aquila (National Interuniversity Consortium for Informatics - CINI)
• University of Milan
• University of Molise
• University of Palermo (National Interuniversity Consortium for Informatics - CINI)
• University of Salerno
• University of Sannio (National Interuniversity Consortium for Informatics - CINI)

PNR 2015-2020: ARS01_00456 | Specialization Area: Cultural Heritage
Period: September 2018 / February 2022

POR FESR 2007/2013 – Regione Lazio/Asse I – Ricerca, innovazione e rafforzamento della base produttiva

Context

The reference domain is that of the Extended Enterprise: a reengineering of organisational structural models capable of:

• improving efficiency in order to optimise the production of goods / services;
• “extending” the interaction between the business areas to seize opportunities for new “collaborative spaces”;
• being integrated into a stable architecture and easily maintainable.

Aims

To create a tool based on the integration of the most advanced technologies of knowledge management with those of E-Learning and the Web Semantic, to introduce an innovative production, acquisition and sharing of knowledge mechanism that businesses could turn into tangible business results.

Result

The project realised an innovative platform for e-Learning that is:

• modular;
• web-based;
• open (add / remove function modules according to specific requirements);
• extensible;
• social (enriched environments for social networking - Web 2.0);
• semantics and Open Data compatible.

Thanks to this feature, the product is highly scalable and can easily be declined even in fields and domains different from the one for which it was designed.

Innovative aspects

i-LIKE, integrating exposed systems, is emerging as a tool that can build knowledge bases through the collection, classification, analysis, development and distribution of relevant knowledge in a timely and accurate manner;

• combining and integrating different methodological approaches and technological environments to offer an innovative solution of immediate fruition that allows for the customisation of the learning paths, making them leaner and faster (Personal Learning Environment);
• through the Web 2.0 technological applications, collaboration plays a key role and, thus, becomes the ideal training setting for integration between formal and informal (Technology Enhanced Learning);
• semantic technologies, allowing for the use and development of new knowledge through the sharing of objectives and participation distributed, determining a training model applicable in various areas (from the school to the company) and extensible "for life" (Lifelong Learning).

In a networked economy in which the propagation of knowledge proceeds through mechanisms of exploration (new), extraction (from existing knowledge bases) and exploitation (re-use), i-LIKE represents the optimal solution to cope and govern a deep change process: to transform organisations into “learning organisations”.

SME Initiative on Analytics (FP-ICT-2013-SME-DCA)

@CULT Srl (I), ScanBit (E), Tecnalia (E), ARTIUM - Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo (E), Szépmuvészeti Múzeum (H)

Context

The ALIADA European project is at the frontier of advanced web semantics and linked open data technologies, harnessing the potential for enhancing the information assets of organisations and institutions that operate in the context of historical and cultural assets.

Aims

To develop a framework based on the use of open source products capable of automating the entire process of creating and publishing linked open data, regardless of the data source format.

A tool that is easy for all users to use without the need for specific technical know-how and technology to enable those working in the Culture sector to offer the public new and innovative viewing experiences.

Result

A technical/technology model was engineered to achieve, through a pipeline, the most important best practices inherent in the LOD:

• modelling and analysis of a dataset;
• selection of open licenses;
• definition of appropriate URI to identify resources;
• selection (or processing) of domain ontologies;
• converting data in RDF;
• publication of datasets on authoritative domains to make them usable by automated agents.

The framework has seen, over the course of development, a number of intermediate releases connoted by its work package.

Each was tested – for usability and performance - and measured through specific evaluation criteria:

• effectiveness (quality of use);
• efficiency (quality of performance);
• satisfaction (quality of interaction with users).

The tool, even though created in the context of Cultural Heritage, may be used by everyone - public or private organisations - regardless of the sector in which they operate.

The scalability and high potential for customisation and configuration allowed by the open source components make the product:

• perfectly adaptable to the needs of every type and size of user;
• easily integrated into existing systems and architectures.

ALIADA, already integrated in the management systems of libraries and museums participating in the Consortium, is now available in a release that includes the publication module, the last step after converting data into RDF and linking to other datasets.

POR FESR Lazio 2007-2013 Asse I / CO-RESEARCH

Temporary Business Association / purpose: @CULT Srl, PRIMA-S Srl, Università degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale

Context

Company business models and strategic and organisational solutions with which businesses operate in the market are and must be constantly evolving in order to react quickly to external input.

As a result, ICT technologies are continuously evolving to accompany that change, managing complexity and the growing body of information to be processed.

Aims

To develop a new generation hybrid, to remedy the discontinuity that arises between different business applications, making data flow between them problematic (information silos).

A “deconstructed suite” driven by user characterised by:

• functional modules no longer belonging to a single product but selected among different solutions and subsequently integrated;
• modules present both on premise and in the cloud;
• semantic layer primarily established for operations of market intelligence, using the informational power of linked data.

Result

The project developed an integration platform prototype (iPaaS), based on an ESB engine to integrate business applications, coordinating the flow of information through synchronisation and interoperability mechanisms:

• based on open source components;
• modular;
• multiplatform;
• web-based;
• open;
• extensible;
• compatible with innovative semantic technologies.

The selection of open source products has been carried out on the basis of an evaluation grid specially crafted according to criteria such as: leadership in the segment, authoritative comparative studies, technological platform, ease of installation and use, functional power, availability of APIs and web services with BSE systems present on the market, scalability, reference community and availability of support and assistance.

The creation of the integration model and exchange of information flows produced/used by business processes, standardising and establishing the information needs of each process for its operation was based on the PCF framework: Process Classification Framework of the APQC organisation: an authoritative reference point in the world of comparative business process analysis.

POR FESR Lazio 2007-2013 / OPEN DATA

Context

The reference universe is multi-domain. On the one hand, there’s the informational/IT technological development that has characterised the building blocks of this project. On the other, the redefinition of the role of galleries, libraries, archives and museums (acronym: GLAM) that increasingly constitute the nodes in a network made up of culture providers and creators.

Aims

MINERV@ has been focused on the need to facilitate interaction, the exchange and reuse of knowledge between information systems that are not homogeneous for the optimal management / use of Cultural Heritage.

Result

Through the project, which involved collaboration between @CULT and the Museo Galileo in Florence, a data set was created according to the principles of Linked Open Data (LOD): “Banca dati Museo Galileo: strumenti, libri, fotografie, documenti”.

The data selected for conversion into LOD (RDF) was part of the museum’s Cumulative Database and concerned:

• the catalogue for the collections of tools and machines on display in the museum;
• the catalogue of the library, archive material and photographic collections;
• the Italian bibliography of the history of science;
• the Galilean Bibliography.

Following best practices and the rules for the treatment and release of data, as suggested by the LOD paradigm, the activities were:

• the identification and selection of data, among the approximately 250,000 bibliographic and authority records from the museum;
• analysis and modelling; each item was analysed to identify the use factor within the record and catalogue;
• choice of ontologies; selecting ontologies used for the mapping and conversion of records in RDF, which was driven by the study of related national and international projects and similar thematic areas;
• output production and its validation; data mapping was used to implement the conversion rules, resulting in the conversion framework of data in RDF/XML. The resulting file was then analysed to verify the formal and syntax accuracy of the output and the correct implementation of the application rules for the selected ontologies;
• publication; the dataset was published in the DataHub, the Open Knowledge Foundation portal and Tuscan Regional Government’s OpenData portal.

POR FESR Lazio 2007-2013 Asse I / MICROINNOVAZIONE

Context

The scope is the entire information complex produced by organisations and institutions connected to Cultural Heritage (libraries, archives, museums, tourist offices...), but extensible to related, adjacent or similar fields.

The guiding principles of the project were:

• the integrated enhancement of resources in an area, especially those with tourist appeal, related to the use of cultural heritage in evolved and competitive organisational forms within the global economy;
• to increase the efficiency of the regional (specifically Lazio), tourism / economic industry, in other words, the chain through synergistic relationships between technology, cultural resources and market.

Aims

To design a technological system with web semantic methods aimed at qualifying cultural resources and facilitating its spread.

Requirements:

• ability to collect, translate and manage data more efficiently;
• ability to combine data from different sources to allow for sharing among multiple users and applications, both regionally and nationally and internationally.

Result

Through the Project, the “Linked Open Data Framework” (OpLiDaF) was developed. It’s a new generation of open source framework for creating and displaying data in RDF/XML (XML syntax for RDF) in different formats.

With the tool, you can generate (or translate) documents that can be read by humans but also accessed and interpreted by automated search agents (machine understandable).

OpLiDaF, operating with methodologies pertaining to the web semantic, responds effectively to the emerging need for integration between different systems through the creation of data infrastructures.

Innovation is mainly about:

• resource management;
• control procedures and quality assurance for results;
• control of the durability of the results.

At the architectural level, the competitiveness of the product is represented by:

• high and easy adaptability to different domains;
• ease of use for the production of the final result (usability);
• multiple and diverse uses;
• technological modularity and scalability (hyperscale);
• achieving results with maximum economy and quality.