Mariana Ziku

This chapter presents a cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural collaborative case within the framework of digital culture and participatory research. Our work emerges from an experimental collaboration including researchers from three European universities interested in the design of innovative methodologies involving young people from different cultural backgrounds. The researchers’ goal was to engage in increasing cultural awareness and strengthening democratic/citizen engagement through digital media. We hoped that the use of digital tools was suitable for involving the groups of minorities and underrepresented communities and tested this in Saint-Denis, France, and Mytilene, Greece. We organised open-science workshops and activities that facilitated the exchanges among the participants. While members of the team included faculty staff with experience in teaching and learning, this collaborative learning case gave the opportunity to reflect on how design-researchers’ aspiration to increase cultural awareness and citizen engagement in minority communities meet challenges. The learning takeaways are especially oriented towards how tools can be developed and oriented towards the support of engagement strategies. The chapter discusses the potentials and pitfalls relating to cross-disciplinary collaboration and to the involvement of underrepresented groups to increase cultural awareness and citizen engagement through digital tools and participatory activities.

Crowdsourcing applications that integrate storytelling and geotagging capabilities offer new avenues for engaging the public in cultural heritage. However, standardised evaluation frameworks are lacking. This paper presents an applied evaluation methodology involving the analysis of relevant web-based tools. Towards this goal, this paper presents the development of crowdsourcing applications using, as a case study, the collection of myths and legends associated with the monumental heritage site of the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes in Greece. Additionally, the paper presents an evaluation conducted through a criteria-based approach and user-based survey. The study reviews the concepts of crowdsourcing and digital storytelling within digital heritage, along with current concepts of living heritage and folklore, and examines relevant initiatives. The evaluation follows a four-stage methodology: (i) initial web-based tool selection based on the minimum requirements of web compatibility, crowdsourced data display, and map-based storytelling capability; (ii) application development using the selected web-based tools; (iii) a five-criteria assessment, based on the factors of open access, usability/tool support, participatory content/story creation, metrics provision and metadata model usage; and (iv) a crowd-based survey, indicating the most effective option. Findings from 100 respondents reveal limited exposure to participatory storytelling applications but interest in contributing content. Social media and influential figures serve as key channels for promoting crowdsourcing open calls. The results highlight gaps in understanding user expectations and perceptions, suggesting future research for gaining insights into engagement rates.

Report - CC Open Culture Working Group Digital Community Heritage

Information about the paper titled "QUALIFICATION RECOGNITION SYSTEMS ADOPTED BY UNIVERSITIES: AN EXPLORATORY DATA ANALYSIS" at IATED Digital Library

The zine publication documents "Art Pluriverse", an annual community science series initiated by the Biennale of Western Balkans in 2020 as part of its year-round programme, in connection with the History of Art Laboratory, School of Fine Arts, University of Ioannina in Greece. Art Pluriverse aims to uplift intangible cultural heritage through community science, by engaging communities and the public in co-creative research in close collaboration with artists and researchers. Drawing on art, intangible cultural heritage and open knowledge, the programme foregrounds communities that safeguard local practices, by documenting their artistic heritage and traditional knowledge through open, educative and participatory methods. The collaborative process leads to the co-creation of research-based art and the development of digital community archives based on open-access principles, envisioning an Art Pluriverse for collectively experiencing and sharing tradition anew.

The importance of HEIs in supporting and promoting open science is highlighted in several EU policies. Among them, the 2017 Report of the Working Group on Education and Skills under Open Science emphasizes the need to shape HE students/next generation researchers as “open science citizens”. More precisely: “The European Research Area (ERA) should work in closer collaboration with the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) (...), enabling the next generations of researchers to evolve as Open Science citizens (...) New generations of scientists and researchers, as the driving force for innovation and economic growth, are of vital importance to Europe's future competitiveness and leadership” (p. 16).Our study problematizes on the role of HEIs as incubators of the next generation open science citizens (in terms of HE staff and student skills, curricula and interdisciplinarity), including a niche of cross-disciplinary humanities and natural sciences applied cases, where institutions situated in a broader social context leverage citizens in knowledge creation processes through professional-amateur (pro-am) collaborations, and in decision making in diverse populations as urban, Indigenous or special needs communities (active citizenship, civic engagement, citizen science). The study, initiated by the European project CitizenHeritage ("Citizen Science Practices in Cultural Heritage: towards a Sustainable Model in Higher Education", https://www.citizenheritage.eu/ ) presents the analysis resulting from a desktop research and a survey on practices conducted between November 2020 and January 2021. The presentation focuses on a number of registered practices that bridge scientific disciplines in the areas of earth and life sciences, history of science and cultural heritage, producing a substantial, evidence-based review of multimethod research practices of Higher Education engagement in citizen enhanced open science.

The emerging field of Linked Data for Digital Cultural Heritage presents new challenges and possibilities for memory institutions and the way they model their digital collections for open access. The essay reviews current semantically-informed practices and conceptualisations, standards and applied frameworks on this topic, with a focus on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). In particular, the essay identifies and reviews the scope of applied frameworks for a semantically informed digital documentation of intangible cultural heritage by memory institutions, a topic with limited contributions in academic literature so far. The essay starts with an overview of the current digital transformation in the GLAM sector. Following a data centered approach, it analyses conceptual models of linked data in connection to digital heritage. It further reviews the working models and metadata schemas of linked data in particular for Intangible Cultural Heritage including innovative examples and finally, discusses challenges and new concepts for future research on the topic.