As a Ph.D. student both in Cultural Heritage in the Digital Ecosystem at the University of Bologna and in the Una Her Doc European doctoral program in Cultural Heritage, my research focuses on addressing challenges in digitized cultural heritage metadata exchange.
In the realm of digital humanities, the diversity of digitized objects is reflected in the multitude of data models and formats. Furthermore, it is common for data to be managed by domain experts who may not be well-versed in conversion technologies. This poses a limitation in the execution of interdisciplinary projects and hinders the utilization of cultural heritage artifacts as FAIR digital objects. For this reason, my research aims to enhance interoperability by developing an actionable workflow for metadata crosswalks, to allow for the reengineering of domain knowledge into a machine-readable format, without needing expertise in conversion technologies.
The implementation involves a user-friendly workflow with a proxy language, utilizing configuration files for mapping rules. Key technologies include: (1) RDF Mapping Language for structured data conversion into RDF triples; (2) RAMOSE for exposing data in RDF serializations; (3) LimeSurvey for guiding the process of knowledge formalization through questionnaires; (4) MiTAO for making the integrated software components executable.
The methodology has been tested on case studies involving temporary exhibitions, bibliographic data, and citations. As a future development, in the context of the Una Her Doc European doctoral program, the workflow will be further developed to accommodate historical data from Finnish digital heritage services.
The proposed methodology addresses interoperability, semantic complexity, and data exposure challenges, ultimately fostering accessibility and integration of cultural heritage data.
