***Apologies for cross-posting***

DCC Tutorial: The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model - A New Standard for
Knowledge Sharing
29/01/2008
University of Glasgow

The DCC and FORTH are delighted to announce that they will be delivering a
joint one-day tutorial on the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model. 

This tutorial will introduce the audience to the CIDOC Conceptual Reference
Model, a core ontology and ISO standard (ISO 21127) for the semantic
integration of cultural information with library, archive and other
information. The CIDOC CRM concentrates on the definition of relationships,
rather than terminology, in order to mediate between heterogeneous database
schemata and metadata structures. This led to a compact model of 80 classes
and 130 relationships, easy to comprehend and suitable to serve as a basis
for mediation of cultural and library information and thereby provide the
semantic 'glue' needed to transform today's disparate, localised information
sources into a coherent and valuable global resource. It comprises the
concepts characteristic for data structures employed by most museum, archive
and library documentation. Its central idea is the explicit modelling of
events, both for the representation of metadata, such as creation,
publication, and use, as well as for content summarization and the creation
of integrated knowledge bases. It is not prescriptive, but provides a
framework to describe common high-level semantics that allow for information
integration at the schema level for a wide area of domains.

The CIDOC CRM, as an effort of the museums community, is paralleled by the
Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) by IFLA for the
librarians community. Both Working Groups have come together since 2003 and
started to develop a common harmonized model. The first draft version is now
available as a compatible extension of the CRM, the ooFRBR, covering equally
libraries and museums.

The tutorial aims at rendering the necessary knowledge to understand the
potential of applying the CRM - where it can be useful and what the major
technical issues of an application are. It will present an overview of the
concepts and relationships covered by the CRM. As an example of a simple
application, it will present the CRM Core Metadata Element Set, a minimal
metadata schema of about 20 elements, still compatible with the CRM, and
demonstrate how even this simple schema can be used to create large networks
of integrated knowledge about physical and digital objects, persons, places
and events. As an example of a simple compatible extension, it will present
the core model of digitization processes used in the CASPAR project to
describe digital provenance.

In part two, the tutorial will present in detail the draft ooFRBR Model.
This model describes in detail the intellectual creation process from the
first conception to the publishing in industrial form such as books or
electronically. It should be considered equally interesting for the digital
libraries community, and it is a fine example of the extensibility of the
CRM for dedicated domains. 

There will be enough time for questions and discussion. 

Presenter:
Martin Doerr, Information Systems Lab, Institute of Computer Science,
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Vassilika Vouton.

Target audience: 
Ontology experts, digital library designers, data warehouse designers,
system integrators, portal designers that work in the wider area of cultural
and library information, but also IT-Staff of libraries, museums and
archives, vendors of cultural and other information systems. Basic knowledge
of object-oriented data models is required.

Duration: 
Part one: 3 hours
Part two: 1.5 hours  

Cost:
£50 for DCC Associate Network members and £75 for non members. 

If you are interested in taking part, please email
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any interested parties. 

Best regards,

Joy Davidson
DCC Training Coordinator and ERPANET British Editor
Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII)
George Service House, 11 University Gardens,
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QJ
Scotland
Tel: +44(0)141 330 8592
Fax: +44(0)141 330 3788
http://www.dcc.ac.uk
http://www.digitalpreservationeurope.eu
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