Tag Cloud Bulletin
Edition 1 - 15/07/2013
What is TAG CLOUD?
TAG CLOUD (Technologies lead to Adaptability & lifelong enGagement with culture throughout the CLOUD) is a European-funded project that will generate lifelong engagement with cultural heritage through social media, augmented reality and storytelling applications based on the cloud.
The project aims to increase the active participation of the general public in cultural events and experiences, by inviting them to become participants in their own cultural experiences contributing with new content, opinions, as well as interacting with other people and heritage institutions, curators and researchers in the cultural area before, during and after the visit.
Developing an innovative and adaptive system to redefine cultural experiences
The appropriate user profiles and requirements will be identified
Scenarios and use cases for the TAG CLOUD system are developed based on a user-centered approach. These scenarios and use cases serve to capture user requirements from different target groups including cultural heritage institutions and the public. While the scenarios are means to concretize the system concepts and facilitate the capture of feedback from users, the use cases build a basis for defining the system functionality.
A basic framework will be established to fit user requirements and cultural artefacts. On the one hand, it will provide the mechanisms for discovering the most appropriate user profile parameters that motivate the engagement with the cultural heritage, and for automatically matching these parameters with the information from social networks including preferences and needs. As a result, a user profile ontology will be developed. On the other hand, a model to label/represent cultural artifacts in the system will be proposed and contextual parameters and rules to extract personalized contents based on user requirements and preferences are provided. The aim is to tailor personalized cultural offers for users in order to make their cultural experience more effective, engaging and user-centric.
Social media, storytelling and augmented reality apps will forge lifelong
Existing systems, devices and algorithms used worldwide by cultural heritage institutions in combination with relevant social media will be reviewed to draw the preliminary specifications of TAG CLOUD system. The aim is to develop applications that will allow the public to enjoy an adaptive cultural experience. More particularly, these applications will make simultaneous use of augmented reality, storytelling and social media. Additionally, TAG CLOUD will develop tools that will support cultural researchers and curators in their task to measure the public’s trends and preferences. These tools will exploit public behaviors via social networks.
Build a global architecture
TAG CLOUD architecture will follow a SaaS (Software as a Service) approach. Ways to locate, store and serve the artefacts in a secure fashion and matching users’needs in reference to artefacts to provide personalized experiences will be developed. A modular, open and efficient system architecture will be designed which will work with open-source technologies, to allow its continued collaborative development over time. The adaptability of the system for personalized interaction and context-related artefacts will be achieved by means of the development of an overall interface concept which is cross-platform-compatible and user-friendly.
Three pilot sites will test TAG CLOUD
TAG CLOUD follows an interactive user centered approach that involves users in all the phases of the project development. TAG CLOUD will be simultaneously installed in three different pilot sites: an archaeological site that combines indoor and outdoor scenarios (the Alhambra of Granada in Spain), a traditional museum (the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in United Kingdom), and a city with different museums and cultural institutions (Sør-Trøndelag in Norway).
Latest News
Kick-off meeting in Madrid
TAG CLOUD held its Kick-off meeting in Madrid the past 18th-19th of February, 2013 at the premises of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. We were warmly welcomed by our hosts, the representatives of LifeSTech team, who are part of the UPM. The meeting started with a hackaton to discuss the most relevant technologies for TAG CLOUD and continued with an overview of the entire project and its work packages. It concluded with an open discussion where all partners shared their different points of view and gathered interesting inputs.
Our website is ready!
TAG CLOUD’s website was lunched the 7th May 2013 with the following objective: to raise awareness about the project as well as to disseminate its results on a worldwide scale. With a user-friendly design and full social media integration, the website shows up-to-date information about the project, including partners, description of the project, objectives, expected outcomes, pilot sites, and events among other things. We encourage you to visit our website and to follow us through Facebook and Twitter.
Technical Meeting in London
Allowing open access to digital cultural artefacts, the TAG CLOUD system will follow a SaaS/PaaS approach that will let information to be located and stored in a secure fashion while allowing cultural institutions to remain in control of their data. Institutions will be able to leverage their digital cultural information to create applications on the platform via the TAG CLOUD API. The adaptability of the system for personalised interaction and context-related artefacts will be achieved through an overall interface concept, which is cross-platform and user-friendly.
Focus group interviews in Trondheim, Norway
The focus of the Norwegian trials is “culture in the landscape” and secondary schools were selected to evaluate TAG CLOUD solutions. The scenarios developed by SINTEF and the Sør Trøndelag County Administration, in collaboration with cultural institutions, have now been evaluated through focus groups organized in two secondary schools. Focus groups with professionals within culture, tourism, media and IT were also organized. The scenarios were positively received and participants have provided us with valuable feedback.
First plenary meeting in Trondheim, Norway
TAG CLOUD held the first plenary meeting on 1st-2nd of July 2013 in Trondheim, Norway where the status on each activity was presented. In particular, the scenarios which define the system were described and discussed. The plans for starting the technical development and for the trials were also set up. The project participants had the opportunity to visit the Gunnerus library (the oldest scientific library in Norway) and to explore the interactive library experience tools developed in the MUBIL project, a relevant and inspiring visit for the TAG CLOUD project.
What is next?
Partners
Co-funded by the ICT programme of FP7
Email: info@tagcloudproject.eu
Website: www.tagcloudproject.eu
Facebook: facebook.com/TagCloudProject
Twitter: @TagCloudProject