Culture Knowledge Base

This 2020 European Commission report identifies ten basic questions and principles that researchers should ask themselves before deciding to go 3D digitizing.

The IANUS Research Data Center for Archaeology and Classical Studies, coordinated by the German Archaeological Institute, has compiled IT recommendations for the sustainable handling of digital data, including recommended formats for 3D data.

The 2018 publication contains inspiration for advancing the field of OCR for scientific research, handling historical texts as well as manuscripts, and key recommendations on OCR.

CCO is a handbook of guidelines for documenting cultural heritage objects and the visual resources they represent. The focus is on art and architecture, but many other types of culturally relevant objects are also considered.

CDWA provides easy-to-understand and clear guidelines for structuring information when cataloging art and other cultural heritage objects in collections. It is supplemented by many examples.

The DFG Practical Guidelines formulate standards and provide guidance on organisational, methodological and technical issues in the context of object digitisation and indexing. This document is an updated version of the Practical Guidelines published by the DFG in 2016.

These decision-making aids and methodological notes on the production and archiving of born-digital videos focus above all on the sustainability and interoperability of the solutions. Several case studies illustrate the implementation of the recommendations.

This is an initial guide for institutions wanting to digitize their film resources. It compares a range of film "inputs" and digital "outputs" in the conversion of picture and sound information, and concludes with a sample service description for film-to-video conversion.

This document describes a common standard for descriptive metadata for embedding in broadcast WAVE files, one of the most commonly used container formats for storing audio files. It is accompanied by the BWF MetaEdit tool, which can be used to integrate the metadata.

This document defines guidelines for embedding descriptive metadata in the Digital Picture Exchange (DPX) format for film material, including the core fields defined by the SMPTE ST268 standard for data exchange.

This document presents professional methods for creating the most faithful digital reproductions possible of physical two-dimensional collection items such as texts, plans, maps, graphics, or photographs.Iit also focuses on documenting image-related information in metadata.

The Ground Truth Guidelines have grown out of the DFG-funded initiative for Optical Character Recognition Development. They address the creation of ground truth, i. e. reference data for the development and evaluation of OCR systems.

An introduction to digitization for cultural heritage collections. It focuses on digital collection management and explains all the steps involved in the computer-assisted documentation of a collection and the subsequent networking of the data in comprehensive portals.

Recommendations for standardized and systematized documentation of results in provenance research, compiled by the Provenance Research Working Group and receiving a great deal of attention.

Specifications for the digitization of two-dimensional materials such as manuscripts, books, newspapers, and magazines, but also photographs, paintings, and graphic sheets. They are technically oriented and refer exclusively to the image quality and metadata of the primary file.

The "Masterplan Zeitungsdigitalisierung" summarizes the experiences and results of the DFG project "Digitalisierung historischer Zeitungen" and includes a summary of the most important recommendations.

The European Impact Centre of Competence in Digitisation has published this best practice guide to OCR. The guide provides an introduction to OCR and is more technical in nature, a bit older, but thorough.

The guide focuses on the identification of cultural property that was seized as a result of persecution during the National Socialist regime. It provides practice-oriented information on the goals, scientific methods and issues of provenance research.

This technical report of the Dutch Pure3D project of 2021 provides a comparably up-to-date state of the art compilation of available scientific 3D web infrastructures. The survey is complemented by user requirements, guidelines and recommendations.

The document contains both the 2019 survey of 3D content in Europeana as well as a set of recommendations. Although the survey was limited to the content available in Europeana at that time, the results and recommendations can be generalized in principle.

This document proposes a methodology for integrating the management of digital collections into the existing curatorial and administrative functions of the institution. It is intended as a companion document to the UK Collections Trust's Spectrum documentation standard.

The Spectrum documentation standard of the British Collections Trust has set guidelines for the comprehensive documentation of museum objects and all related work processes that are considered exemplary and are applied worldwide.

An older, but still valid set standard to Web Annotations, which serves as a basis for various projects.

The publication by Jake Carlson provides instructions on how to use the so-called "toolkit" for documenting research data, as well as templates and examples compiled for free use by Purdue University in the US.

The publication by Jake Carlson provides instructions on how to use the so-called "toolkit" for documenting research data, as well as templates and examples compiled for free use by Purdue University in the US.

The site provides detailed information on why, how and which research data should be documented in accordance with the FAIR criteria, with regard to formats, vocabularies, languages, protocols, repositories, persistent identifications.

The site explains the benefits of documenting metadata early in the research process, provides a good overview of the steps involved, and references best practices from everyday research.

This resource illustrates how 3D printing works and is used in museums through a series of practical examples. It is especially recommended because of the appendices, which complete the use cases with a valuable compilation of information about 3D printing, including a glossary,…

The publication concisely explains the concept of process data as an important part of sustainable documentation in the humanities context and presents three schemas for process metadata.

The page highlights the aspect of transcription (as writing down what is spoken and observed) of qualitative research data and offers, among other things, further links for audio and video transcription as well as literature recommendations on the topic.

The article provides an overview of the data lifecycle and its individual stages.

The topic of data organization is addressed here in an overview and some measures for good data organization are presented, as well as references to other, related topics.

This resource provides an introduction such as an overview of long-term and sustainable data formats and covers file formats, conversion, compatibility, long-term stability, metadata, and machine readability.

A research data policy for research projects creates transparency in the handling of research data and requires planning, documentation and description. The contents of the guide will be transferred to an online generator as the project progresses.

The overview compilation of forschungsdaten.info offers a first insight around tools for data organization of scientific data. It refers to various tools and software as well as their documentation.

The publication identifies concrete data problems in research data on tangible cultural assets. Each problem is described by a structured profile that includes aspects such as the quality dimensions involved, examples, causes and ideas for improvement.

CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model is the reference ontology for cultural heritage information integration (ISO Standard 21127:2014). The primer is an introduction to the fundamentals and basic modelling of CRM and provides a guided introduction.

The description of the data life cycle on forschungsdaten.info is very compact, but as an introduction it explains aptly what the data life cycle is all about.

The article offers a good first introduction to the topic of DMP and contains numerous useful, further links for the user (including the specifications of the funding institutions, DMP tools, etc.).

This little data management horror story illustrates fundamental problems in the subsequent use of data that arise due to poor standardisation, documentation and archiving, suitable for initial sensitisation to the topic of research data management.

As an application ontology, the Erlangen CRM / OWL is an interpretation of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model. 
It is the authoritative application ontology of CRM in the German-speaking world and important, e. g., for data stewards carry out implementations on the basis of…

To counteract ambiguities in the interpretation of FAIR principles, the Research Data Alliance has developed core assessment criteria for FAIRness of data and formulated a set of indicators, including a checklist, as a starting point for reviewing your own data.

The page explains the FAIR principles quickly and clearly. On the one hand, it describes the tasks involved in creating FAIR research data, and on the other hand, it presents the requirements for repositories to offer FAIR data.

FAIR-Aware is an online tool that helps researchers and data managers assess how much they know about the requirements for the findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability (FAIR) of datasets.

The multi-part learning module of the PARTHENOS project (2016–19, G. Bruseker et al.) explains the purpose, basic principles and application contexts of ontologies in semantic information processing even for users without an information science background.

The Gemeinsame Normdatei (GND) offers the largest openly licensed pool of German-language authority data on individual terms, such as persons, corporate bodies, events, geographies and artistic works, but also on general terms in the form of subject headings.

Geonames is a database aggregated primarily from public data sources with over 12 million topographic entities worldwide, including increasingly fixed artefacts (buildings and monuments). It is one of the most important nodes in the Semantic Web for geographies.

Das Getty Research Institute bietet mehrere aufeinander abgestimmte strukturierte Fachvokabulare für die Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften. Der AAT ist ein mehrsprachiger, hierarchisch strukturierter Thesaurus mit über 72.000 Allgemeinbegriffen (Nov. 2021). 

The Getty Research Institute offers several coordinated structured subject vocabularies for the arts and cultural studies. The TGN lists georeferenced entries for 2.5 million geographies worldwide with a focus on historical places (as of Nov. 2021).

The Getty Research Institute offers several coordinated structured subject vocabularies for the arts and cultural studies. ULAN is a vocabulary of over 527,000 artists and arts-related individuals and entities (as of Nov. 2021).

GO FAIR is a bottom-up initiative aiming to implement the FAIR data principles and make data discoverable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR). It provides an implementation network active in the areas of GO CHANGE, GO TRAIN, GO BUILD.

The Hornbostel-Sachs system is a classification system for musical instruments. It has been the international standard since the 1970s. The system was updated and expanded in 2011 as part of the Musical Instrument Museums Online (MIMO) project.

The teaching and training manual is intended to support higher education institutions in integrating FAIR-specific content into curricula. It offers a comprehensive presentation of all FDM and FAIR topics, arranged by competence profiles, and includes practical material.

Iconclass is a comprehensive classification system for the indexing of representational content in pictorial collections that is used in museums, libraries and research projects worldwide. It is particularly suitable for indexing Western art.

ISIL records identifiers for libraries, archives, museums and related institutions within the globally applied ISIL identification system. The German ISIL agency is the Berlin State Library. The data are provided with addresses and georeferenced.

The LIDO Handbook is dedicated to objects of the genres painting and sculpture and is an application profile of the internationally established metadata standard LIDO, which serves as a guide for structuring information in local collection management systems.

The handbook provides graphic collections with guidance for the acquisition of data and its integration into cross-collection contexts. It looks at the perspective of scientific description of the goods and that of the informational organisation of the data.

LIDO is an XML schema for providing metadata on objects of material culture for various post-use contexts, from online publication to output via interfaces. It supports the full range of descriptive information on cultural property.

ORCID IDs are unique identification numbers for people in the scientific work process, which can be used to link them to their publications, research data and other research-related resources. The deposited data are not editorially checked.

This page of the European Commission gives a very detailed overview of the possibilities and the related formalities to finance a project.

The position paper of the Council for Information Infrastructures (RfII) deals with quality assurance and enhancement in the documentation of research data and is a comprehensive and motivating analysis on the topic of quality assurance in the science system.

The film provides information about the GND as a data collection of authority data from the cultural sciences and as an organizational structure for institutions involved in shaping the GND. It addresses the integration of the GND in international contexts.

VIAF is an aggregated standards data service with holdings from 57 national libraries and similar providers (as of Aug. 2022). VIAF establishes concordances to an entity via the standards records available for it and offers a URI to this cluster.

Wikidata is a rapidly growing database on all knowledge domains that has been in existence since 2012 and can be edited by anyone interested or supplemented by automated enrichment. Wikidata represents one of the most important data hubs of the Linked (Open) Data network.

The initiative, founded in 2010, has developed labels that document standards for the consideration of indigenous interests in FDM: the Traditional Knowledge Label (relevance of indigenous forms of knowledge) and the Biocultural Label (expectations of biocultural data…

Traditional Knowledge Labels help to implement the CARE principles. Via the page one gets a detailed explanation and further explanations of the TK labels.

A useful compilation on copyright for music from sheet music to concert recordings. Spotlights are thrown on music on the internet, the reproduction of music and various scientific use cases  – with details on the use of sheet music.

The Creative Commons offer a licensing toolkit that has been widely used in the cultural sector. The carefully compiled FAQ on this package covers not only the basics and basic questions, but also many specific topics.

The Association of German Art Historians has posted a guide to image rights in art historical practice that explains various usage scenarios and the related legal situation. It has been published in an updated edition in 2022, which brings the guide up to date after the copyright…

iRights is an information platform and online magazine on law in the cultural sector, with a focus on copyright, data protection and Open Educational Resources (OER). Cultural heritage institutions are a special target group. iRights e. V. is the sponsor.

If protected material is to be put online, there are modules on the Rights Statements page for corresponding information. This expresses, for example, that licences have been obtained, but that subsequent use is not possible without further ado.

The website, which specializes in continuing education, offers an interactive questionnaire here that guides one toward the appropriate Creative Commons license for one's project.

This decision tree provides guidance on the steps to consider before transferring within or between research institutions beyond the research purpose itself.

The tool allows researchers to independently determine whether and how they process personal data. In this way, the responsibility remains with the researchers and the assessment takes into account all the details of the research activity.

This tool helps to implement the planned consent in a legally compliant manner. The result is therefore permissible, valid consent if the aspects and requirements from the GDPR (and, if applicable, the BDSG) contained in the wizard are complied with.

The tutorial is a detailed, research-related introduction to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The principles of the GDPR are presented as well as the "ELDAH consent form wizard" (help for creating correct consent forms for data processing).

EOSC Pillar: Legal Compliance Guidelines for Researchers is a checklist for researchers to design research projects in compliance with data protection law. In addition to data protection law, the checklist also takes into account other legal issues of intellectual property law.

The model contract serves as a basis for researchers to generate their own data use contracts or to identify needs and translate them into legal texts.

The "5 Safes" is a concept in data protection developed in the United Kingdom to help in the development of an effective data protection concept.

In 2020, the Council for Social and Economic Data put the second edition of its handout on data protection online. It summarizes the basics of data protection law and provides an excellent introduction to the subject, including easy-to-understand examples.

The guideline of the German Museums Association on dealing with collections from colonial contexts provides information and working aids for collections in researching, documenting and presenting objects and in cooperating with societies of origin.

This decision tree provides an overview on the data protection aspects of uploading conference videos to popular video platforms as well as the processing of relevant data.

This 2021 guide from the German Museums Association provides important guidance for collections dealing with issues related to the management, presentation, and restitution of human remains.

These recommendations for daily collection work in the areas of care, indexing and research, as well as use for teaching and exhibitions, are aimed primarily at those who have not previously worked with human remains, or have done so only rarely.

The chapter written by Anne Lauber-Rönsberg in the Practical Handbook on Research Data Management (2021) summarizes the legal framework of FDM. The focus is on copyright law, the regulations of good scientific practice, service and labor law, and data protection law.

The Council for Social and Economic Data's 2017 handout is "a first step towards a discipline-wide and interdisciplinary understanding of research ethics principles and review procedures in the German-language social and economic sciences."

The CARE Principles were formulated to complement the FAIR Principles with an important research ethics aspect. The topic is explained in an introductory way and via the page one can obtain both a summary and a detailed presentation (each as a PDF).

For all those who work digitally with cultural heritage and who would like to make an initial assessment of the legal issues. The 2021 amendment to German copyright law is reflected, which includes new legal permissions, particularly for the online presentation of historical…

This DFG questionnaire helps researchers to plan and describe the handling of research data in their project beyond the context of an application.

The publication summarizes results from the survey on Enhanced Publications. It presents representative examples and underlines that there are a variety of publication contexts that go beyond standard research publications or digital collections.

This task sheet for beginners contains eight key tasks on research data management, from data capture to publication: Data Management Plan, Data Structuring and Naming, Data Selection, File Formats, Metadata/README File, Legal Aspects, License Selection, Repository Selection.

This handout guides you through the process of publishing your research data quickly and easily on RADAR4Culture: upload data packages, describe metadata, edit, validate and publish.

re3data is a service for searching research data repositories worldwide. It is possible to search specifically by content categorization (e.g. subject areas).

Forschungsdaten.info is the German-language information portal on research data management (FDM). On the topic of "repositories" there is a general introduction, including the topics: Choosing a repository and certification.

open-access.network offers an introduction to open access repositories and also provides an overview of open access repositories via OPENdoar.

The 2017 paper by Cordula Franzke ("Repositories for research data using the example of the Digital Humanities in national and international comparison") deals with the basic quality criteria for repositories.

With RIsources (RI = Research Infrastructure), the German Research Foundation (DFG) offers an information portal on scientific research infrastructures. RIsources provides an overview of research data repositories in Germany.

The DFG Code of Conduct represents the consensus of the DFG's member organizations on the fundamental principles and standards of good practice, underscoring the importance of integrity in everyday research.

In its discussion impulse on the scientific, scholarly and cultural use of collections, the Council for Information Infrastructures (RfII) addressed the (future) role of collecting institutions in the digital transformation of science with regard to the framework conditions.