Decipher, a solution for digital heritage that works with semantic web technologies

DECIPHER aims to support the discovery and exploration of cultural heritage through story and narrative. To do this the project is developing new solutions to the whole range of narrative construction, knowledge visualisation and display problems for museums.

Digital heritage and semantic web technologies hold out the promise of nearly unlimited access to cultural knowledge. The problem is that cultural meaning does not reside in individual objects but in the patterns of knowledge and events, belief and thought that link them to each other and to the observer. This is why narrative is so important to the communication of, and meaningful understanding, of culture.

DECIPHER is developing new solutions to the whole range of narrative construction, knowledge visualisation and display problems, with a high degree of future proofing.

DECIPHER is a three year, €4.3 million Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) supported by the European Commission.

OBJETIVOS DEL PROYECTO

· Published semantic workflow models and formalised representations of the curatorial processes.

· Published schema and software tools for describing cultural content in terms of their relationships to events, places, people and themes, and the user’s purpose and cognitive profile.

· Search, retrieval and aggregation software tools that harvest cultural content from public sources across domains (art, music, dance etc.) in such a way that it can be semi-automatically described with the event schema.

· Reasoning-based software tools that support the individual organisation and exploration of content across historical periods and cultural domains.

· A software Demonstrator built of Open Source components that creates a robust and sustainable repository of narrative that is linked to the collections of digital cultural objects held by partner institutions and external networks. This will be designed for subsequent exploitation on a Software as a Service model.

· Standard-based user interfaces that deliver a personalised, rich media experience that use any browser-based device capabilities for visualisation, including 3D and stereo image and sound.