Digital Presentation and Preservation of Cultural and Scientific Heritage. Conference Proceedings

19-28

Authors: Natalia Manola

There is an emerging consensus among the members of the academic research community that eScience practices should be congruent with Open Science, which essentially facilitates multi-disciplinary collaboration and data sharing and re-use, entailing Open and Shared Access to research data, data services, tools, analyses, and methods. This short paper presents the key characteristics of a sustainable open science e-Infrastructure as gained from six years of operation of OpenAIRE, a key EU e-Infrastructure on scholarly communication. presented.

37-42

Authors: Panos Constantopoulos

The penetration of ICT in the management and study of material culture and the emergence of digital cultural repositories and linked cultural data in particular are expected to enable new paths in humanities research and new approaches to cultural heritage. Success is contingent upon securing information trustworthiness, long-term preservation, and the ability to re-use, re-combine and re-interpret digital content. In this perspective, we review the use in the cultural heritage domain of digital curation and curation-aware repository systems; achieving semantic interoperability through ontologies; explicitly addressing contextual issues of cultural heritage and humanities information; and the services of digital research infrastructures.

49-62

Authors: K. Stefanov, B. Bontchev, P. Boytchev, A. Georgiev, A. Grigorov

Video games proved to be an attractive media for presenting cultural heritage issues. They can use virtual worlds to present cultural and historic information in amazing and highly appealing way. Each video game is implemented using set of valuable artifacts (components) reflecting technological, socioeconomic and historical issues. These software components are known as software assets, which are key output of the RAGE project. They can be used by game developers to enhance the pedagogical and educational value of their games. These software assets cover a broad spectrum of functionalities, including emotion detection, intelligent adaptation and social gamification. In order to facilitate integration and interoperability, all of these assets adhere to a common model, which describes their properties through a set of metadata. In this paper, we present the RAGE asset model and asset metadata model, highlighting key issues and challenges in constructing RAGE assets and using asset metadata model with flexible metadata editor, facilitating both adaptation and improvement of the asset metadata model.

73-80

Authors: Zsolt László Márkus, Gábor Kaposi, Miklós Veres, Tibor Szkaliczki, Detelin Luchev, Desislava Paneva-Marinova

The paper introduces the mobile presentation of Bulgarian bells as the newest developments in the GUIDE@HAND mobile application family. The integration of the Web based archive on the Bulgarian bells (Multimedia Fund “BellKnow”) and the mobile application family made it possible that information on bells can be presented on mobile devices. A standalone offline mobile application (BOOK@HAND Bells) was created providing multimedia information on bells including textual description (history, creator, material, height, location, description, etc.), audio files containing the sounds of the bells, photos, videos presenting the bells while being tolled and diagrams representing the acoustic characteristics of the bells.

93-106

Authors: Feng Zhao, Soo Choon Loy

This paper discusses how 3D digitization of cultural properties and modern interactive methods can help museums disseminate, educate and share the rich history, culture and civilization of museums’ collection more effectively than traditional methods which used visual boards.

117-128

Authors: Digitization of Cultural Heritage – a Service-Oriented Approach

The digitization of Cultural Heritage assumes an interdisciplinary approach, collaborative knowledge co-creation, and distant communication. This can only be fulfilled by ICT means requiring in turn alignment between those who deliver the technical (IT) support and those who are in the role users. A Service-Oriented approach is considered adequate in this regard because of users’ composing services at high level (with underlying technical complexity remaining hidden) and developers’ considering the software components whose functionality is delivered through the services. All this requires however complex regulations to conform with. Semiotic norms in combination with workflows are considered in this regard. In this paper, we propose an approach based on Service-Oriented Computing and Organizational Semiotics, directed to Cultural Heritage digitization. The approach is partially illustrated by means of an example.

137-146

Authors: Maxim Goynov, Konstantin Rangochev, Desislava Paneva-Marinova, Vladimir Sapunjiev

The implementation of the idea of improved access and effective usage of digital libraries content has led to a new type of services, providing their wider content integration and merging. In this context, the analysis of integrating service usability is essential and gives new directions for functionality extension and improvement. This paper presents an analysis of the usage of the interoperability service, compiling content from two digital libraries for Orthodox art and knowledge – the Encyclopaedia Slavica Sanctorum and the Bulgarian Iconographical Digital Library.

161-168

Authors: Ralitsa Dutsova

The article describes a model of integrating language techniques with leading-edge technology to develop a web-based on-line tool for heritage language preservation and e-learning. Bulgarian language resources - parallel corpora and bilingual dictionary are presented in an interactive way using a common web-interface which is accessible for students, faculty, and affiliated Heritage language communities.

179-188

Authors: Stefka Kovacheva

The article describes cultural heritage sites in Bulgaria, under the protection of UNESCO, as database elements that can be used for e-learning. The learning environment will motivate intellectual inquiry and, through organizing the methods of collecting and managing information, will be created cultural knowledge for existing and new sites, which will be evaluated and promoted. The environment serves the State Educational Standards (SES) of educational content for the cycle Social Sciences and Civic Education. The established database presents structured, scientifically proven and didactically correct knowledge, and is a conceptual framework of how sites can be viewed, perceived and "assembled". For the users (learners) the information about sites is a basis for research and a communication tool. By interpreting the cultural significance of artifacts, they structure information based on the attributes of the database. The features of the sites are a carrier of memorable and enriching information. The meaning is not found only in a specific object, but is created from the interaction between user, message and environment.

199-206

Authors: Galina Bogdanova, Todor Todorov, Nikolay Noev

This paper presents digital knowledge including context-based annotations of objects in the field of cultural heritage. Some major problems and solutions of digitalization of items, their processing, storing and organizing them in a repository are highlighting. We show how graph databases could be used as data management platform.

213-218

Authors: Elena G. Shatko, Galina Bogdanova Todor Todorov

The article is a summary of a multi-year research into certification of bells of 16th - early 20th centuries collected as a result of liturgical instruments study of 287 bell towers, churches and museums. Analysis of archives from Belarus contrib-uted to the research resurrecting knowledge about lost bell heritage. This is also the first attempt to discuss the establishment of digital Belarusian Historic Bells Archive and introduction of campan handling basic training into educational programs of religious educational establishments.

227-232

Authors: Vladimir Georgiev, Lyubomir Milkov, Yavor Angelov, Stanimir Dimitrov

This paper describes an online environment for showing the human body in an interactive 3D format. By using that platform, various groups of medical personnel, patients and students can fully manipulate models of digitized male, female and child bodies. The highest level of detail available for the objects being dis-played allows users to view any specific part, system and organ, show how certain condition affects the human body, add annotations and render animations. The paper also draws attention on the current challenges in the industry and how they are approached.

241-246

Authors: Stanislava Slavova-Petkova, Maria Dimova, Detelin Luchev

The paper examines how the understanding of fairy tales of little child could be improved with help of two contemporary learning methods - role-playing and serious games. A scenario for non-formal and fascinated study of fairy tales was explained with some actual examples using serious game environment ADAPTIMES.Learning Methods, Fairy Tales, Advanced Learning, Serous Games, Role-playing

255-260

Authors: Valeri Katzounov

The resources of the modern technology presuppose an initiative development in order to unite the efforts and activities for the collaboration in digitalization of the most important pieces of cultural and historical heritage. In a number of cases they have received the support of scientific projects for the creation of an open communication environment with a purpose of promoting the cultural values of the community. This report presents work on a research project for the conservation of cultural heritage at risk. The problem is with national priority and occupies a significant place in the European integration process. The two collections with which we apply in the British Library need special attention due to their poor structural condition even at the time of their transfer to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences more than 50 years ago. The first collection was created by Colonel Petar Darvingov and consists of 3100 black and white old photos, maps and sketches. The second collection of Aleksandar Bozhinov contains 2050 old photos, sketches, caricatures and cartoons with pencil and ink. The documents have an exceptional his-torical and informational value, but their physical conditions hinders their scientific use. The creation of digital copies will enable working with them, which in turn will protect the originals from further damage. The copied documents will build a distinct insurance fund and the institution will be able to broadcast scientific information through various forms of promotion of the fund – exhibitions, presentations, etc.

267-274

Authors: Tsvetanka Trifonova, Kaloyan Zdravkov

The increasing needs to expand access to research results and insufficient opportunities for publication in printed issues put a serious challenge to the scientific community. The aim of the paper is to mark the first step towards solving this problem in the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics of the Veliko Tarnovo University by building a repository of digital documents using open source software.

283-284

Authors: Boyan Bontchev, Desislava Paneva-Marinova, Lubomil Draganov

Thanks to their specific characteristics, educational video games make game-based learning more effective than traditional teaching approaches with regard of students’ motivation, engagement, and learning outcomes. This demonstrator presents an educational 3D maze video game introducing Bulgarian Orthodox iconography. The structure and learning content of the maze game are defined declaratively by applying several contemporary teaching methods and learning scenarios for Orthodox iconographic art study. Next, the game is generated by means of a special software platform for creation of customizable desktop video maze games for education. The demonstrator outlines both the game design and development processes and provides a tour through the generated educational maze rooms and tunnels. It shows how the game can be adapted according player’s achievements, emotions and performance.

289-292

Authors: Iliya Valev

The study is devoted to the conscription during socialism in Bulgaria and presents the digitization of materials and the researches for the conscription and the ideas for creating a digital archive of soldiers' legacy of the socialist period.

297-303

Authors: Peter Stanchev, Zlatina Karova, Yanita Zherkova, Radoslav Pavlov, George Simeonov, Bhanu Neupane

The paper draws the current state of Bulgarian Open access (OA) activities and discussion points for the Seventh National Information Day: Open Access to Scientific Information and data.