Digital Cultural Heritage

The Digital Cultural Heritage Network will examine how well international standards created in the west serve data created in the east. How can scholarship be advanced by their use? How can Humanities scholars be encouraged to use them and contribute to their creation? How can museum/library documentation and conservation be shared for mutual benefit? How can management of sites and monuments (also objects in museums) benefit from 'citizen science'?
The Network will have a strong university/Humanities base and sharply focused technical goals - promoting and developing collaboratively international standards for linked open data and encouraging open access to knowledge. Digital technologies underpin Oxford's Cultural Heritage Programme established by the PI. The CoI is Vice Dean of the College of Arts in Peking University. Coincidentally they both are experts on ancient Greek art with lengthy experience of the international art/heritage community. Both universities have world-class libraries/museums, ITC expertise and extensive international collaborations. Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi has been selected for academic excellence and historical associations: founded by Indira Gandhi, it can partner with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), also in New Delhi, and Oxford's Indira Gandhi Centre (IGC) for Sustainable Development. CH can become a major research theme there and in its China Centre.
Advisory Committees can act as national hubs and foundations for future collaborations. The British Museum, British Library and Victoria and Albert Museum will be among the UK members, INTRACH and IGNCA among the Indian, CADAL and CALIS among the Chinese. The Steering Group of CHP will act as an over-arching expert group.
The research emphasis reflects each country's political structure. Since conservation and management are controlled by the State in China these themes will be highlighted in India. Since CH datasets are less well developed in India digital technologies will be highlighted in China. The Network will 'cross fertilize' through workshops; in Delhi and Beijing they will promote Digital Cultural Heritage nationally. In Oxford Indian, Chinese and UK experts will meet for three days of presentations in venues of special relevance - Said Business School (Management), Ashmolean Museum and School of the Environment (Conservation), e-Research Centre (Digital Technologies) and The Future of the Past in the PI's Wolfson College - graduate and international with Research Clusters (Digital and Asian).

The Network's principal means of dissemination will be web sites where all outputs will be available to researchers and the public. The Oxford workshop will be streamed live to Delhi and Beijing and its presentations uploaded as podcasts and e-papers. The themes of Sustainable Cultural Heritage: Management and Conservation and Digital Cultural Heritage: Museums and Libraries will be of interest in developing and developed countries. The commitment to a dialogue with the east about international standards developed in the west will be of interest to national policy makers as well as computer scientists, museum curators and librarians, conservators and management specialists. The potential of data created in the east being accessible to the west and interoperable with the western can change the way scholars and the public study the past. We expect guidelines to emerge for management, conservation and technology that will have considerable impact for two reasons: the participants will be senior experts, highly regarded nationally and internationally, and they will represent key sectors of the cultural heritage and digital technology sectors.

Museums and libraries. Globally the latter have embraced digital technologies more swiftly than the former. Since Oxford and Peking universities have both they are excellent test beds for transferring benefits. The Ashmolean, British Museum and Victoria and Albert will participate. By sharing technologies with its partner museum in Mumbai the last could achieve particular impact, as could the Ashmolean with the Sackler Museum in PKU. In the library sector The Chinese Section of the Bodleian and the British Library (Dunhuang Project) will participate.

Conservation and Cultural Heritage Management: Government and Public Sector
Sites and monuments are often linked to national conservation and urban development programmes. Conservation labs in Oxford, London and elsewhere will participate and the potential that new digital initiatives offer for shared data will be highlighted. ConservationSpace (http://conservationspace.org/Home.html) offers open-source software applications to share documentation management globally. Since the State controls Conservation and Management the Network will focus on India, with partners such as the Indian National Trust for Cultural Heritage, the Archaeological Society of India and the Aga Khan Development Network's (AKDN) Historic Cities that can have tangible impact and attract media coverage locally, nationally and internationally.

Local Communities, the Wider Public and the Media
The Network proposes to explore 'citizen science' for local communities by building on the PI's pilot project with AKDN that empowers people on the ground to record their own CH with mobile devices, capture images and upload them to Oxford's e-Research Centre where they will be analysed with image recognition technologies.
To encourage wider public participation all outputs will be on web sites. Workshop events can also be streamed to universities, CH organizations and the public. Traditional press coverage will be used as well as social media networks for maximum impact, particularly among the young, who use mobile devices extensively in India and China.

International Organisations (including professional/practitioner groups for International Standards in digital technologies).

Libraries
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is harmonizing museum and library conceptual models CIDOC CRM and FRBRoo (http://www.ifla.org/node/928). The use of these standards can be spread across the museum and library. In China CALIS and CADAL, flagship digital library platforms, are expected to participate in the Network, thus strengthening the potential for impact on digital policy.

Digital Technology Sector and Policy-making
The UK is a world leader in digital semantic web technologies; JISC has recently highlighted Discoverability of museum and collection data as a priority for digital research (http://rdtf.jiscinvolve.org/wp/ ). Showing what these technologies can offer, while actively engaging with Indian and Chinese colleagues to assess how well 'international' standards suit their data, the Network can hasten the implementation and adoption of truly international standards within the scientific communities in both countries, where Information and Communication Technologies are flourishing.

Policy-makers/Governments
Given the political structures of India and China policy-making is technology-focused and described above.

Commercial/Private Sector
CH and dynamic ITC industries in India and China have not yet been brought together for commercial gain, nor has the great personal wealth generated by this sector been used to stimulate personal philanthropy. If CH can be seen as an inalienable human right (as under discussion for the UN) its global profile will be huge. The Network wants to see the private sector, in addition to the state, directing significant funds into Digital Cultural Heritage , and welcomes the opportunity to do this under a UK banner of AHRC.