Mike, Denis

It's interesting to note, according to the Digital Culture 2015 Survey
(ACE/NESTA), that cultural org use of, or investment in, data and related
resources appears to be dropping. There's lots of interesting data in the
survey and it'd be good to really interrogate some of the things that are
springing up in these surveys (hopefully at an MCG event!)

The survey (at http://artsdigitalrnd.org.uk/features/digital-culture-2015/)
reveals an odd understanding about GLAM sector opportunities around data
and distribution methods. Here's some of the pre-amble to the graph about
data activity:

"The study has also tracked a range of data-led activities, such as using
data to identify high net worth potential donors for fundraising purposes,
and to inform commissioning strategy. Across the three years, there has
been little net change, and in fact this year there have been modest but
significant drops in two areas – the proportion of organisations using
audience data to send out newsletters has dropped from 81 per cent in 2013
to 76 per cent in 2015, and only 40 per cent now use data to develop their
online strategy, compared with 45 per cent in 2013. These drops are fairly
consistent across organisation sizes and art and cultural forms."

So - let's keep plugging away with the much more interesting stuff about
LoD, semantic web, vocabs, thesauri, blockchain etc. Eventually funders and
stakeholders might realise it is actually a thing to encourage...

JP

On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 1:33 PM, Mike Ellis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> What's kind of interesting in following both this thread and the many
> hundreds before it - and then going through to look at some of the data you
> guys kindly pointed me to in CSV and other formats - is that two things pop
> out straight away:
>
> 1) The good: there is lots of this data out there and more all the time,
> and it seems to be becoming the norm to publish it, which is superb. It has
> also required huge efforts from people like Mia and others, for which I
> think we all owe them lots of drinks..
>
> 2) The not so good (or maybe it's ok, just to be expected?) : there appears
> to be absolutely no emerging standard whatsoever :-)
>
> Denis, Mediachain looks super-interesting, btw, would love to know more..
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> _____________________________
>
>
> *Mike Ellis *
>
> Thirty8 Digital: a small but perfectly formed digital agency:
> http://thirty8.co.uk
>
> * My book: http://heritageweb.co.uk *
>
>
> On 3 February 2016 at 11:42, Richard Light <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Denis,
> >
> > I think the rate of progress towards open cultural data is fairly glacial
> > here in the U.K.  See my provocation to UKMW15 [1] for a summary of some
> > relevant issues.
> >
> > As you imply, one major issue is centralization vs. silos.  I support the
> > idea that individual institutions should take responsibility for
> publishing
> > their own resources, but in a way which is interoperable with the rest of
> > the community.
> >
> > A central initiative which is worthy of note is the Research and
> Education
> > Space [2].  This offers a platform for cultural heritage Linked Data
> > resources, which a community of developers is now eager to get to work
> on,
> > developing educational applications.  All it needs is lots of cultural
> > heritage Linked Data ...
> >
> > One problem is: what does 'interoperable' look like?  I have been
> > advocating the use of the CIDOC CRM [3] to express statements about
> > collections objects in an interoperable manner, but there is no immediate
> > answer to the problem that all actual collections data currently held by
> > MLAs is expressed as string values, not URLs. Most of the software
> systems
> > MLAs are using offer them no help to move towards a Linked Data
> publication
> > strategy.  And (with a few exceptions, such as the Getty vocabularies,
> > Geonames, ...) there are no common frameworks we can turn to as a source
> of
> > such URLs.
> >
> > I would be delighted to be told I'm wrong, but my impression is that most
> > UK institutions don't really 'get' the open/linked data idea, and where
> > they do, they have no idea how to go about supporting or implementing it.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> > Richard
> >
> > [1]
> >
> http://www.slideshare.net/RichardLight/museums-home-of-unlinked-data-57824586
> > [2] https://bbcarchdev.github.io/res/
> > [3] http://cidoc-crm.org/
> > P.S. I thought MCG were putting all these talks up after the meeting.
> > Clearly not ...
> >
> > On 2016-02-03 12:34 AM, Denis Nazarov wrote:
> >
> >> Hello MCG,
> >>
> >> I am one of the engineers working on Mediachain.
> >>
> >> Mediachain
> >> <
> >>
> https://medium.com/mine-labs/introducing-mediachain-a696f8fd2035#.414x0afc4
> >> >
> >> is an open source, blockchain based metadata registry that enables
> >> institutions and developers to easily publish, use, link and extend
> media
> >> datasets, while maintaining attribution for contributors and creative
> >> works.
> >>
> >> Instead of releasing metadata as static data dumps
> >> <https://github.com/NYPL-publicdomain/data-and-utilities> or requiring
> >> developers to use disparate siloed APIs
> >> <http://museum-api.pbworks.com/w/page/21933420/Museum%C2%A0APIs>,
> >> Mediachain functions as a shared data layer where institutions can
> >> verifiably publish data. Once ingested into the datastore, developers
> can
> >> easily reuse and extend it without obscuring its source.
> >>
> >> The goal of Mediachain is to lower the barrier to publishing and
> consuming
> >> open data, while preserving data attribution. Datasets are no longer
> >> siloed, but integrated with one another so each new entrant has an
> >> opportunity to securely enrich the existing corpus.
> >>
> >> I was inspired by Mia Ridge's awesome article from 2013
> >> <http://www.museum-id.com/idea-detail.asp?id=387> to reach out to this
> >> group to ask:
> >>
> >> - What is the state of open cultural data three years later in 2016?
> >>
> >> - For technologists with experience at GLAMs, how can current open data
> >> strategies and practices be improved to enable richer collaboration
> >> between
> >> institutions and a digital audience?
> >>
> >> We are looking to pilot Mediachain with a few institutions and their
> open
> >> data and I'd love to talk to anyone interested. Here is more detail on
> the
> >> Mediachain protocol
> >> <https://medium.com/mine-labs/mediachain-483f49cbe37a#.vdksi4onb>.
> >>
> >> -Denis
> >>
> >> ****************************************************************
> >>         website:  http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/
> >>         Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/ukmcg
> >>        Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/museumscomputergroup
> >>   [un]subscribe:  http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/email-list/
> >> ****************************************************************
> >>
> >>
> > --
> > *Richard Light*
> >
> > ****************************************************************
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> >
>
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-- 
Jon Pratty, FRSA
Creative Digital Producer
07739 287392
@jon_pratty

Chair, Brighton Digital Festival CIC <http://brightondigitalfestival.co.uk>
Creative Network Programmer, Ideas Test <http://ideastest.co.uk/>
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