This document outlines the research plan to study open cultural data and propose new business and social models for its production and distribution. The research will examine 1) how digital technologies are transforming cultural heritage, 2) the role of open data and open knowledge in making cultural issues more accessible, and 3) initiatives by memory institutions and aggregators to disseminate open cultural data. Key research questions focus on how to make data more open, accessible, equitable and community-owned. The research design will use mixed methods including a secondment at Open Knowledge Finland.

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Connectivities built by memory modalities
Internet ecologies of open knowledge as future memory
modalities
Angeliki Tzouganatou
Knowledge Hub 1 | Hamburg, 14.12.2018

2. Overview
1. Research topic
2. Research interest
3. State of the research
4. Research questions
5. Research design and methodology
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3. 1. Reseach topic
• The research project will study and shed light on the conditions for
the openness of cultural data and also propose new business and
social models for its production and distribution that are open
compatible
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4. 2. Research Interest
• Digital technologies and social media are increasingly influencing and
transforming the way cultural heritage is perceived (Kidd, 2011;
Giaccardi, 2012), providing solutions to crucial issues for the sector,
including its sustainability, its openness and its public engagement.
• Open data, open knowledge and the internet enable more people to
become better acquainted with issues related to culture, society,
technology etc.
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5. 2. Research Interest
• “ ‘Open knowledge’ is any content, information or data that people
are free to use, re-use and redistribute” (Open Knowledge
International, 2018).
• “Open data are the building blocks of open knowledge. Open
knowledge is what open data becomes when it’s useful, usable and
used” (Open Knowledge International, 2018). This is very important
to the cultural heritage sector!
• From digital infrastructures for research public engagement
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6. 2. Research Interest
• There is an urgent need for new rules that should be formulated and
applied to the thriving field of digital economy, as digital technologies
have brought a growing inequality in relation to the wealth
distribution (Pollock, 2018).
• New models and approaches to infrastructures that will engage and
enable users’ participation in cultural heritage, and not being
conceived as “scholarly ecosystems” (Bernardou et al., 2017), but
rather as digital infrastructures for the pubic engagement.
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7. 2. Research Interest, connection to POEM
• Make the cultural data accessible and meaningful to the public,
inclusivity of the public.
• Participation, engagement and meaningful interactivity of the public
in the cultural heritage process.
• Shaping a collective memory by building internet ecologies of open
knowledge.
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8. 3. State of the research
• Memory Institutions´ initiatives to open up and digitize their
collections, e.g. Rijksmuseum (Scheltjens, 2017).
• Initiatives from public & private aggregators to disseminate and
engage with the public the open cultural data.
• The implementation of the FAIR principles (Wilkinson et al., 2016).
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9. 4. Research questions
• What it really means for the data to be open?
• Does access means accessible?
• How can we make the data even FAIR-ER, namely Equitable and Reconcilable
(Cook, 2018).
• Is re-use only about sharing and re-sharing the data (Hugget, 2018)?
• How can we make FAIR platforms too, that would be community owned?
• How to move from individual property to collective property?
➢ What are the conditions and the resources required to build internet
ecologies of open knowledge that could enable users to shape a collective
memory?
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10. 5. Research design and methodology
➢ Mixed Methods Research - Combining qualitative & quantitative
methods
• Secondment in Open Knowledge Finland
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11. Thank you!
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