Forum | 19. May 2025

Measuring the quality of cultural data - but how? Concepts, methods, potentials and the NFDI4Culture approach

Forum “Measuring the quality of cultural data - but how? Concepts, methods, potentials and the NFDI4Culture approach”

Monday, 19.05.2025 and Tuesday, 20.05.2025 | 1-4 pm both days | digital via Zoom | Registration (until 14.05.2025)

Quality standards such as the FAIR Data Principles are central to the sustainable provision and usability of research data. But how can the quality of research data be assessed in an informed and transparent way? The NFDI4Culture task areas "Standards, Data Quality, Curation" and "Overarching Technical, Ethical and Legal Activities" invite you to an online Forum dedicated to current perspectives on measuring cultural data quality.
Assessing data quality using metrics is not a fad, as shown by the quality campaigns of national and pan-European players such as the German Digital Library, the European Open Science Cloud and Europeana. While data quality standards such as the FAIR Principles apply across domains, the task of detailing subject-specific requirements lies with the respective communities. NFDI4Culture is therefore developing an approach to the metrics of cultural data quality that will provide a framework for data quality management in our communities. The target group of the Forum is primarily managers of data platforms and repositories, who are facing fundamental questions about indicators, checking and ensuring the quality of their data, but also researchers who are interested in being able to integrate their data with good quality into the respective services.
The first afternoon will focus on perspectives, needs and practices of quality assurance both in the operation of cultural data portals and in research. The second afternoon will focus on the data quality assessment approaches developed by NFDI4Culture and their technical implementation.
The language of the Forum will be German. 

Program

19.5.2025 13:00-16:00 Uhr

13:00 - 13:10 Welcome

13:10 - 13:25 Introduction to the topic “Measuring data quality” – Celia Krause (NFDI4Culture)

13:25 - 13:55 Quality management in the European data space for cultural heritage – Henning Scholz (Europeana)

Since the implementation of the Europeana Publishing Framework (EPF), the Europeana initiative has been able to measure the quality of cultural data. The quality of the metadata is measured in the same way as the quality of the digital objects. Suppliers and users of the data benefit equally from the quality management based on the EPF. The presentation will cover this as well as the challenges that had to be overcome and that we are still facing today.

13:55 - 14:25 The role of data quality in EOSC (Data Quality Framework for EOSC) – Chris Schubert (TU Vienna/EULiST)

The need to integrate explicit and precise information on data quality into the productive data process is becoming increasingly important with EOSC. For example, the former EOSC Task Force FAIR Metrics & Data Quality developed a framework document that provides recommendations on how to achieve data quality not as a burden, but as an opportunity for trustworthy data and methods for reuse, productivity, artificial intelligence and in the context of EU Data Spaces. Through open consultations, a consensus was discussed with the global community and is closely linked to the focus on providing data quality and indicators as a FAIR artifact.  With the new EOSC Strategic Pillars of MAR 2026 - 2027, awareness of the topic of data quality has been set with an enormously intrinsic role for the research data infrastructures in operation. These insights offer scope for joint exchange with NFDI projects.

14:25 - 14:40 BREAK

14:40 - 15:10 Diversity in problems, strategies and solutions – NFDI4Objects environment analysis for research data management in museums and collections – Johannes Schäffer (HU Berlin/NFDI4Objects), Magdalene Schlösser (IfM/NFDI4Objects)

The NFDI4Objects environmental analysis of RDM in museums and collections examines an important aspect of the FAIR principles, the use of standard data and controlled vocabularies in a sector that works very heterogeneously and without central guidelines, on a meaningful statistical basis. At the same time, collection data is increasingly valued as research data. What strategies can be used to grow data quality from the bottom up, from the collections and museums? How does NFDI4Objects want to and can provide support here?

15:10 - 15:40 Cultural data and data culture – strategies for more data quality in the CARLA project – Anke Hofmann, Elisa Klar (both HMT Leipzig)

With CARLA, the library and archive of HMT Leipzig have developed a database on the history of the Leipzig Conservatory of Music, which provides biographical data on the international student body, their teachers and the subjects they taught for the period 1843-1918. The network of around 13,000 people shown includes, among other things, the possibility of assigning teachers to their students as well as depictions of temporal, geographical and gender-specific groupings. In their presentation, the speakers would like to introduce CARLA to the audience, present their approaches to creating and maintaining data quality and discuss desiderata and possible solutions based on the FAIR Data principles.

15:40 - 16:00 Discussion

20.5.2025 13:00-16:00 Uhr

13:00 - 13:30 Summary of the first day and introduction to the topic of data quality at NDFI4Culture – Desiree Mayer, Angela Kailus (NFDI4Culture)

13:30 - 14:00 Information on research data: The Culture Information Portal and the ontological background – Torsten Schrade, Linnaea Söhn (NFDI4Culture)

Collecting information via data portals and repositories and the overarching context of the European infrastructure (EOSC and OpenAIRE).

14:00 - 14:30 The Research Data Graph: Ontological Background, Example Integration and Interconnections in the Graph – Etienne Posthumus, Torsten Schrade, Linnaea Söhn (NFDI4Culture)

14:30 - 14:45 Break

14:45 - 15:15 Data quality in NFDI4Culture for data portals and repositories – Angela Kailus, Melanie Gruß (NFDI4Culture)

15:15 - 15:45 Final discussion, Wrap-up

– Program subject to change –