User Stories

User driven development of tools and services lies at the heart of NFDI4Cultures continuous progress. On this page you will find an extensive collection of user stories describing rcommon challenges in our communities and their respective data domains.

User Story 01

As a musicologist, I would like to store data on Richard Wagner perfomances in Offenbach in a structured way in order to analyze them further. The substantial source material is available in the archive, I don't know of any digital copies, since the archive's material has been sufficient for my study – the archive material is sufficient for my study. I need to expand my qualifications and expertise regarding analysis, structured filing and the handling of standard data.

User Story 02

As a musicologist, I would like to annotate musical sources (with text, possibly also with music notation) in order to analyze them further. The question arises whether my annotations and my knowledge of standards, especially MEI-standards are sufficient. I am also wondering about the adequacy of the standards on hand - I want to be able to direct my requests and thoughts to a central, single point of contact. Since I am also involved in teaching, I would like to pass on competence in this analysis to my students in such a way that they can apply these skills.
/
As an editor of a music edition I would like to create a MEI-based edition of musical scores and keep different versions accessible for different lengths of time in order to a) make decisions later and/or b) keep decisions comprehensible.

(cf. DFG Recommendation 7 on „Sicherung guter wissenschaftlicher Praxis“, p. 21 f.)

User Story 03

As curator I would like to digitally record the collection of paintings of the State Museum for the first time in order to make an inventory, to store my own research results in a well-structured way (CIDOC CRM/LIDO), to publish them and to make them available for subsequent use. In addition to cataloguing for the purpose of archiving, the practical use of image files for day-to-day operations at a museum lies at hand: easy transfer to third parties for purposes of research, compiling of catalogues as well as printing of postcards for the museum shop. for the entire process, my team needs to acquire skills for adequate handling of research data. I need customisable trainings within a narrow timeframe. Furthermore I, myself would like to be able to develop and conduct customised work-shops for my employees.

User Story 04

As a doctoral student in the field of art history, I do research on the subject of ruler portraits. I search the internet for information to complete and optimise my research. I will publish my doctorate digitally.

User Story 05

As head of the digitization department of an art historical institute, I am making an inventory of our collection. In addition, digital images of objects are created on behalf of the associated researchers. In addition to our close cooperation with the University Library, I would like an exchange with the specialist community regarding standards development in order to keep our database up to date and highly connectable. For this inventory process, I need qualified staff (regular staff and assistants). I have to pass on and develop the appropriate skills and for this I need suitable training formats that fit the task at hand. I want to be able to direct my requests and thoughts to a central, single point of contact.
/
As project manager of a digital edition of musical works, I would like to keep the image data resulting from the digitalisation of the underlying sources available for long-term use. My staff requires customised, quality-assured trainings on the long-term availability of image data of musical works.

User Story 06

As a researcher in the field of DH, I develop software solutions for purposes of architectural history: a tool to reconstruct and analyse monuments that are no longer in existance or only partially preserved. Data as well as code are to be made available for subsequent use of the data and for further development. I need a reference framework to be able to check whether my technical solutions mirror the specifics of the interrrelating connection between digital and analogue cultural heritage.

User Story 07

As a music ethnologist, I am responsible for keeping audio/video files (or corpora) created during my research accessible in accordance with the preconcerted legal agreements. Since I am also involved in teaching, I would like to pass on my expertise on this form of analysis to my students so they can apply these skills.
/
As curator of the contemporary collection of a large museum, I would like to make our bundle of video art and the performance documentation accessible for research.

User Story 08

As a music systematician, I handle various quantitative and qualitative data formats, including questionnaires, interviews, audio/visual recordings, neuro/physiological measurements, psychological test procedures, online surveys, experimental settings as well as various programming codes. According to the respective methodology, the data sets also have very different scopes. The data is to be made available for the purpose of verifying the scientific findings (quality assurance), for later use for re-, secondary and metaanalyses (optimisation of knowledge gain) as well as for the purpose of avoiding redundant surveys (maximisation of the cost-benefit ratio).

User Story 09

As a researcher, I'm publishing a partial result of my studies in an essay, for reasons of good scientific practice, I will include the underlying raw data.

User Story 10

As an editor, I care about accessibility and reusability of contextual information (on watermarks, writers, writing processes, tradition, publishing, music engraving, collections, lists of institutions that have stored a source to date, antiquarian bookshops, etc., as well as correspondence with editors/publishers, scientists/musicians who make use of the the institutions' speciaised knowledge for inquiries) in order to avoid duplication of work.

User Story 11

As a researcher in the field of art history, I am looking for historical books by librettists that include prints showing the iconographic subject "Hercules at the Crossroads".
Example:
https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/wi-hibe/content/thumbvie-w/8402857

User Story 12

As a conservator of monuments and buildings, I am looking nationwide for comparable buildings to Stuttgart Central Station in order to prove its architectonic uniqueness and justify the monument's value in court and thus protect it from demolition.

User Story 13

As an organologist, I produce diverse research data, primarily with regard to material and digital objects (musical instruments, sound information/sound carriers, models/simulations, AR/VR artefacts), secondarily but also relevant for this data's contexts (e.g. for persons, corporations, places,events, things, works or titles, for example text-based data, annotations, vidual and audio/video media, dimension series, control information, visualizations, augmented/virtual reality applications, descriptive metadata). As digitalisation progresses, the artifacts show a growing complexity (e.g. through the multiple combination of different types of digital representations). For an efficient knowledge transfer I need an accessible database with the possibility to reference persistently in different stages of my research process.

User Story 14

As a doctoral student of musicology (subject i.a. press coverage of performances of the Freundeskreis zeitgenössischer Musik Glarus). In an essay on press coverage on musical performances in other contexts, I found a reference to a set of research data that served as a base for these findings. Curious about its structure and whether I could use it for my own research in terms of content or method, I researched into it and made a find in a repository. With help from a colleague I could eventually open the data format, unknown to me but I am still not able to interpret the data.

User Story 15

As a university professor, I lead a field research project in other European countries. I want to digitally govern the enormous amount of data that is collected daily during the archeological excavations (survey data; C-14 data; anthropological data; geological and stratigraphic data; daily excavation documentation; drawings and photogrammetric data) in a well-structured way. It is important to me that I can use and retrieve the data not only during the excavation (on site), but also during post-processing, and that several people (project staff) can enter, use and complete data simultaneously. The data structure should serve as a template for a later excavation publication, which is why it seems important to note cross-references in addition to data, full texts and illustrations. The long-term archiving of research data is the first priority. Since I am involved in teaching, I would like my students to learn how to work with this material. In order to assure myself of the content, didactic and methodological approach in teaching, I would like to complete framework training (train-the-trainer). I would also like to have easy access to teaching concepts. I need the support of my institution to transfer this content into regular teaching. In order to carry out this research project, I need qualified staff. I have to pass on and develop appropriate skills and for this I need suitable training formats that fit the task at hand. I want to be able to articulate these needs in a central, single point of contact.

User Story 16

As head of a State Monuments Office I work on several projects at the same time (building surveys- excavation projects - archiving - inventory surveys- survey projects and field inspections - evaluation - cataloguing and reviewing of stacks - preparation for museum presentations). Although the collected data sets are heterogeneous in nature, I would like to collect all data in project-specific databases and interconnect them with each other. At the same time, I want to promote collaboration with other State Monuments Offices in order to go beyond micro-regional evaluations, since a lack of standardisation regarding data collection often stands in the way of a comprehensive regional evaluation of periodiodical/object groups. The search for comparable objects (e.g. comparable architectural buildings) and the analysis of structures (settlement patterns, ceramic developments) could be optimised in a more target-oriented and comprehensive way. In order to guarantee the competent handling of this database, I need qualified employees. I have to pass on and develop appropriate skills and for this I need suitable training formats that fit the task at hand. I want to be able to articulate these needs in a central, single point of contact. In order to carry out this research project, I need qualified staff. I have to pass on and develop appropriate skills and for this I need suitable training formats that fit the task at hand. I want to be able to articulate these needs in a central, single point of contact.

User Story 17

As curator of an archeological collection, I would like to digitally record not only exhibits but the numerous stored objects for the first time. In addition to the graphic recording (photography) I would like to provide each object with a file mask and descriptive text and archive my data digitally. At the same time I would like to offer the possibility to put the physically separated objects of my inventory into chronological, geographical or semantic relations (e.g.: my museum has a complete grave inventory; 3 objects can be seen in the exhibition, while the other objects are kept in the stacks. Visitors/researchers have no way of reading and evaluating the objects in their original composition, as of yet). At the same time, selected exhibits should be made accessible to an interested public in order to increase the attractiveness of my institution. This way, I can point out important objects of my inventory and their significance. As part of the DLC, I would like to ensure not only creation and processing of data, but also long-term preservation and reusability of data (= transfer to third parties for research purposes).

User Story 18

As project manager/ coordinator/ developer of an open source software for digital notating of choreographic scores I am in search of a partner, who can preserve my data for long-term availability and assure its quality permanently.

User Story 19

As a university professor of theatre and dance studies and as a theatre practitioner I would like to build up a digital media archive of the "50 most groundbreaking productions of the last 50 years" with streaming option and access/ user management. Digitized recordings (rehearsals, performances, production for TV) will be available.

User Story 20

As a researcher, I would like to conduct mass data analyses of several 100,000 paintings to investigate the influence of individual styles on and the spread of regional styles.

User Story 21

As a media scientist, I would like to use standard files and ontologies to ensure the compatibility of my research.
/
As a musicologist, I would like to keep my research data reusable via standardized metadata.

User Story 22

As a conservator of monuments and buildings, I would like to enrich our existing collection with metadata on material and style in order to offer our users added value. I don't have time to annotate every single picture myself, for this reason I want to use automatic methods. However, it is important to me that I keep control over the results and can adapt the generated metadata.

User Story 23

As the developer of an open source software for annotating music pieces for artists, I want this tool to reach many people who might even get involved in the development and write code themselves. This is why, I'm looking for a way to make this tool better known and see how users interact with it. I would like to offer tutorials to my users.

User Story 24

As a doctoral student, I develop tools for automatic architectural reconstruction of buildings as part of my doctorate. The long-term availability and usability of the tool is less important to me. My evaluation focuses on precise figures describing the tool's accuracy. In addition, I would like to complete my PhD thesis successfully and receive scientific validation for my technological development.

User Story 25

As a Wikimedian I am happy to be involved in the digital cultural commons and have already made many edits on Wikipedia pages about cultural heritage and made pictures available for free use at WM Commons. I have made contributions to Europeana’s crowd sourcing projects, such as annotating pictures from the 1st World War. I am particularly interested in providing my specialized knowledge on Corinthian temples for various digital objects. I am pleased if this knowledge can be made available a human- and machine-readable way and be reused in research and I can help expanding the general body of knowledge in this field while doing so.

User Story 26

As a funder of research, I would like to receive information about 1) the use of research data annotation tools from third-party funded projects, 2) digitised corpora, in order to be able to draft funding lines at an early stage and to evaluate the success of past funding lines. In order to guarantee the competent handling of this database, I need qualified employees (regular employees and assistants). I have to pass on and develop appropriate skills and for this I need suitable training formats that fit the task at hand. I want to be able to articulate these needs in a central, single point of contact.

User Story 27

As director of a museum, I would like to digitize parts of the collection and in order to ensure the best possible re-use of the material, I am looking for guidelines and standards for implementation. The collection includes old prints, photographs and various objects such as containers, tools and jewellery.

User Story 28

As curator of a major museum for art and cultural history, I am planning the web publication of our inventory data as part of the implementation of our institution’s new digital strategy. Our inventory should not only be searchable in multiple languages on our website, but should also be delivered to relevant portals such as the DDB and Europeana, in order to make our inventory known to as many users as possible, in particular the expert scientists. They should be able to access the differentiated specialized terminology of our intern database in multiple languages, which has been available only in German up to now. Since the database vocabulary has grown historically over the past two decades, editing is necessary prior to the web publication.