EVA-Jerusalem 2007 20 November 2007 Pierlugi Feliciati – University of Macerata – MINERVA EC Maria Teresa Natale – MiBAC – MINERVA EC Pierluigi Feliciati

EVA-Jerusalem 200720 November 2007

Pierlugi Feliciati – University of Macerata – MINERVA ECMaria Teresa Natale – MiBAC – MINERVA EC

Pierluigi Feliciati (University of Macerata – MINERVA EC)

Maria Teresa Natale (MIBAC – MINERVA EC)

MINERVA EC for cultural websites: from the quality principles to the Handbook on cultural

websites user interaction



About cultural Web qualityThe Web has promoted an increasing proliferation of on-line cultural applications, together with information and contents coming from any source.

Almost every organisation or institution or initiative or person today wants to be on the Web, to mark its existence, to promote itself, to disseminate its contents and its activities all over the connected world.



About cultural Web qualityQuality must be ensured for the delivering of cultural content by cultural institutions, but quality is a very broad, generic and subjective concept

Quality has particular resonance in the cultural sector because of the importance and value of the material being presented on cultural websites.



About cultural Web quality

The increasing importance of web as the principal medium to communicate and to share information, may bring some risks, that cultural professionals must face as a primary challenge.



About cultural Web quality

As use of the Internet as an information access medium continues to grow, exposure to culture via the Internet becomes more and more prevalent. As the Internet is used more and more for education and research, the quality of online content becomes more and more important.



Key messages

The key messages to create quality cultural web are: Quality must be planned into a website from the start of the projectThe user is critical – involve him at every stage Relationships with other online resources (interoperability) and with future resources (long term preservation) must be consideredWith proper planning, and building on the information, examples, standards and guidelines available, creating a high-quality website need not be much more difficult, expensive or slow than creating a lower-quality one.



MINERVA for quality cultural Web

The European working group Identification of user needs, contents and quality criteria for Cultural Web Applications worked since 2002 :•To define quality criteria for the digitised content •To encourage the adoption of quality criteria for developing cultural and scientific web applications•To support the initiatives launched by the European Commission with the provision of national digital content•To encourage training actions on cultural sites, to promote knowledge of multicultural issues



MINERVA for quality cultural Web: milestones

March 2002 Beginning of MinervaFebruary 2003 First Deliverable on qualityNovember 2003 Handbook for quality in cultural Web sites Improving quality for citizens (en, it), 10 quality principles (ar, ee, en, el, fr, hu, it)2004 Museo&Web planning kit (en, fr, it)2005 Quality Principles for Cultural Websites: a Handbook (ar, ee, en, el, fr, hu, it)2006-2008 Dissemination of MINERVA products on quality of cultural websites - the publication of an Handbook on cultural websites user interaction (June 08, Lubljiana)



Cultural web quality: some definitions

“A Web site is a collection of information that the user perceives to be a single unit”

(W.Arms, Digital libraries, chapt. 2)

A Cultural Web Application (CWA) can be considered to be every Web application where the contents deal with cultural heritage, and where at least one of those aims are realised:supplying and spreading cultural informationsworking as an instrument for education and scientific research



“



A goal based planning

A cultural entity (person, organisation, institution or a group of different entities joined to build a cultural product)could plan its own website following a goal-based planning method. The Minerva Quality handbook proposed since 2003 a set of possible 12 goals for cultural web:

reach transparency on the identity reach transparency on the application have efficiency in the sector networks presentate standards and regulations spread cultural content support cultural tourism offer educational services offer services for scientific research offer services to professionals offer services for reservations

and e-commerce promote web communities



The 10 MINERVA Quality Principles

The ten principles for cultural web quality are short and provide little guidance to how they are to be implemented or how to assess whether or not a website complies with them. The ten principles are aimed at cultural websites – those concerned with museums, libraries, archives and other cultural institutions. However, the principles are quite generic and can be applied to almost any website.The Quality Principles Handbook, published in 2004 and freely available in 7 languages, aims to add supporting information to each of the principles.




A good quality cultural Website must be:

1. Transparentmust clearly state the identity and purpose of the Website, as well as the organisation responsible for its management2. Effectivemust select, digitise, author, present and validate content to create an effective Website for users3. Maintainedmust implement quality of service policy guidelines to ensure that the Website is maintained and updated at an appropriate level

4. Accessible must be focused on the need to serve all members of the user community, even if technologically or phisically disable




5. User-centredmust take in consideration the importance of user consultation, involvement and contribution at every stage

6. Responsiveresponsiveness is concerned with the ability for the site and the site owners to respond to user questions and suggestions

7. Multi-lingualaccess to culture should be universal. Language can be an important barrier to access, so there must be considered that the web audience for the cultural material goes beyond linguistic and national boundaries




9. ManagedThe primary concern of this principle is to ensure that due care and attention have been paid to non-technical, non-cultural issues such as intellectual property rights (IPR) management and privacy. The the ethical and legal aspects of Website provision must be taken in consideration.

10. PreservedThe rapid evolution of technologies has the consequence that Websites created today are likely to be inaccessible in the longer-term future Cultural material is likely to be as valuable in future years’ time as it is today, with only few exceptions. This makes a long term preservation strategy a critical part of any cultural Website and a key quality indicator.



Museo & Web Planning Kit (by WP5 Italy)

1) Structure and Contents of the PrototypeThis section contains indications for organisation of the contents and services of a museum, and many examples of sites around the world.

2) Tutorial•How to build web pages according to the rules of accessibility and usability•Practical information on architecture, management, inter-operability, copyright, multilinguism issues, etc

3) Quality checkTwo tests:

1.to verify on which of the 12 Objectives for a Quality cultural web application your site has been built 2.To evaluate whether the quality principles have been applied

4) Models to download

5) CMS



2007-2008: MINERVA EC Working Group on

Quality, Accessibility and Usability

Coordinator

Germany in co-operation with Finland, Italy, Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece,

Poland, Belgium, Slovenja, Israel

In short

•It is aimed to work on quality of cultural websites.

•It exploits the work done in Minerva, and complements these products with new publications and monitor relevant guidelines and promote best practice related to websites.

•The main target are the small institutions.

•It organises “interactive” events, to assess websites and to grow the awareness of quality and accessibility of websites among the cultural institutions.



2007-2008: MINERVA EC Working Group on

Quality, Accessibility and Usability

Objectives

•to support small cultural heritage institutions in increasing the accessibility to their digital cultural heritage by sharing practises and techniques within the wider community and interested public;

•to motivate cultural heritage institutions which are still reluctant to make their already existing digital content available within the European digital library;

•to contribute to the mutual alignment of metadata sets and metadata use in the cultural heritage sector in order to improve quality, accessibility and usability;

•to support guidelines and measurement tools that assist in the maintenance and raising the quality of cultural heritage applications;

•to contribute to the organisation of tutorials to make users aware of open source software tools that assist in improving the quality, accessibility and usability of digital cultural heritage offers.



Handbook on cultural websites user interaction

The sector of culture: categories

Archives

Libraries

Museums

Cultural heritage diffuses on the territory

Institutes for administration and safeguarding

Centres for research and education

Schools

Cultural projects

Temporary exhibitions




Users

Who are they? This is the definition in the MINERVA Handbook for quality in cultural Web sites: improving quality for citizens (2003)

A user is a professional or not, specialist or not who casually or with specific aims, occasionally or systematically uses the Cultural Web Application. User identity is extremely variable depending on cultural profile, aspirations for cultural growth, professional aims and even momentary curiosity.




After 4 years, we can find different definitions for the Internet user, for example:

- hybrid individual

- transceiver (transmitter + receiver)

- prosumer (producer + consumer = information recipient and provider of its own contents

Different terms characterize the many user’s activities and behaviours on the web:

consumer / client / audience

user / surfer / iewer

player / clicker / downloader / streamer




A new type of user

Non human users/agents: robots, spiders, crawlers

In this case users are not human individuals searching for or providing documents and contents, but software agents charged to search in the Web in order to index and store web pages.

This variety of definitions reflects an articulated offer of contents and applications present in the new media environment, which at the same time is:

1) Vehicle of information and communication

2) encyclopedic archive and tool of cultural training

3) entertainment and community interaction area

4) technological platform




Keeping in considerations these premises, the MINERVA EC handbook will analyse :

-- Type of users

- Current trends in web services (special chapter on Web 2.0)

- Current techniques for evaluating user needs and interactions (static textual questionnaires, wiki models, panel groups, focus groups, log analyzers, personas for user-centered design...

- Difference between WEB ANALITICS (without user involvement) and AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT (with user involvement)

- The importance of using metadata




The aim of the handbook is to edit guidelines on user interaction, keeping into consideration and matching

user types

site life stages

cultural subject type

type of web applications

and editing

and guidelines on how to build a questionnaire.



MINERVA EC WP5 - Collection of good practices on Web user interaction Campaign

All institutions and cultural web professionals are invited to send to MINERVA information on their cultural web applications involving services and initiatives dedicated to user interaction, such as questionnaries, wiki, panel groups, focus groups, personas, contact centres, folksonomies, etc.Information must include: the name of the institution/initiative, the title, a short description of the service, the URL.Reporting campaign will close at the end of march 2008.



Thank you for your attention. Any question?

Pierluigi Feliciati

[email protected]

Maria Teresa Natale

[email protected]

Documents

EVA-Jerusalem 2007 20 November 2007 Pierlugi Feliciati – University of Macerata – MINERVA EC Maria Teresa Natale – MiBAC – MINERVA EC Pierluigi Feliciati