The DEER

Distributed European

Electronic Resource

Dr Suzanne Keene

Francesca Monti

University College London

DEER visionAccess toall European networked cultural content

Provide users with a view of and access to cultural landscapes, in a multilingual and multicultural information environment

Why a DEER? Culture is the core of European identity

and identities ICT Europe’s second most important

economic sector (tourism the first?) ICT + cultural material = a key means of

enhancing European competitiveness

The DEER audience

Higher education & research The general public, lifelong

learners Public sector organisations Commercial companies

seeking content Tourist industry

DEER components

DEERDEER Content indistributedrepositories

Content indistributedrepositories

Virtual AgoráVirtual Agorá

VirtualReference

Room

VirtualReference

Room

Infrastructure: the cultural GRID?

The content of the DEER Initial target users: higher

education, research Primary sources: digitised

documents, books Research data sets 3D, VR representations Software tools: learning &

teaching

Technical requirements

High bandwidth communications infrastructure Web services & middleware for cultural content

management Distributed information repositories (national) Excellent user friendly portal(s) for multilingual,

multicultural access Technologies for interactive working: Agorá etc.

The DEER system

A very large distributed knowledge management system

Requires the entire chain of cultural content management, from creation to delivery to end users

A cultural GRID

Archival store preservationVersions: Original, Preservation,

Dissemination, Metadata store

User access storeMetadata + ontology databases

Content files for delivery to users

Content providers

Metadata engine

Application

Metadata engine

Presentation+ delivery

DiscoveryDelivery

Userrequest

Tools for user input

Offsitestorage

Backup

Operating the DEER

Organisational models

secretariat

Central, top down(JISC)

Distributed consortium(CULTIVATE)

National/specialistmatrix(ICOM)

SC

SC SC SC

SC

Exec.Council

Specialist committees

Nationalcommittees

SecretaryGeneral

ICOM modelPolicy making body(s)Executive, Advisory

Secretariat

National Committees

Affiliated Bodies + Regional

Groups

SpecialistCommittees

Funding the DEERFour funding models explored: Designated central funding

– eg, GRID programme + national programmes: over more than 1 FP

“Serendipitous” project funding by bids

– eg, 6th FP: broad priorities Membership subscription

– eg, ICOM Commercial not-for-profit

– eg, AMICO, SCRAN

Standards Communication and network Authentication Identification Browser software Content Metadata Terminology

How to get there? A managing organisation Funding A technical infrastructure Content for the DEER

Complementary approachesBottom up: NoEs, E-Culture Net

Top down: IPs, STREPS,

this report

Contribution in FP6 Review projects funded in FP6

– especially E-Culture Net, we hope– which ones would develop DEER

components? Concertation meetings focusing on how

they could coalesce into parts of DEER

Starting the organisation Start-up DEER committee

– Carefully identify a few key players from obvious DEER national organisations + major stakeholders

– Maybe funded as an Accompanying Measure

Support of stakeholders The European Commission The Council of Europe The European Science Foundation The governments of EU member

countries European Research Councils, jointly and

severally European libraries organisations

Establish funding Work with the Commission to establish a

durable funding programme

– eg, GRIDS, GRIDSTART Identify a permanent home for the DEER

Conclusions The DEER: not just an option, becoming

a necessity A cultural GRID for Europe A practical possibility Provide the organisational framework to

consolidate the benefits of previous and present investment in cultural IST