Periodic Reporting for period 2 - inDICEs (Measuring the impact of DIgital CulturE)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-01-01 al 2023-03-31
The cultural heritage (CH) Sector is a key enabler of the advancement of the cultural and creative industries (CCI) in Europe. Not only it provides access to vast amounts of reusable cultural content, but it can be also seen as a R&D lab of the cultural and creative ecosystem through which it contributes both to economic advancement and to society at large. However, researchers and policy-makers are struggling to fully understand the crucial role that the CH Sector can play in the digitisation process of the cultural and creative ecosystem in Europe.
inDICEs is a collaborative project involving 14 European partners, whose ultimate purpose is to empower decision-makers and policy makers in the CCI to better understand the impact of digitisation with the view to stimulate new strategies to (re)use cultural assets, with a specific focus on the rapid development of cultural e-participation.
Through various research activities over the last three years, the project has delivered a number of concrete results that directly contribute to this objective. These key exploitable assets can be divided into two categories:
- Knowledge Assets: Policy and Legal Recommendations, Community Resources for Participatory Activities, Datasets, MOOC. These assets have been designed to: (i) present capacity building and upskilling opportunities, (ii) propose legislative and policy conditions needed to stimulate digital CH reuse and active cultural engagement, and (iii) offer digital resources to support research around the topic of digital CH reuse and impact measurement.
- Technological Assets: inDICEs Open Observatory (including the Participatory Space and the Self-Assessment Tool), Visual Analytics Dashboard, Extensions to the Decidim Open Source Software. These assets are focused on creating opportunities for: (i) participatory and transparent deliberation and co-creation processes, (ii) data collection at scale to support evidence-based decision making about the CH sector, and (iii) data-driven research in the CH field.
Overall, inDICEs has added an additional perspective to the growing debate on the importance and function of CH in the context of digital transformation. The project’s knowledge and technological assets bring to the European scenario the opportunity to reflect on and expand the reach of culture.
inDICEs is a collaborative project involving 14 European partners, whose ultimate purpose is to empower decision-makers and policy makers in the CCI to better understand the impact of digitisation with the view to stimulate new strategies to (re)use cultural assets, with a specific focus on the rapid development of cultural e-participation.
Through various research activities over the last three years, the project has delivered a number of concrete results that directly contribute to this objective. These key exploitable assets can be divided into two categories:
- Knowledge Assets: Policy and Legal Recommendations, Community Resources for Participatory Activities, Datasets, MOOC. These assets have been designed to: (i) present capacity building and upskilling opportunities, (ii) propose legislative and policy conditions needed to stimulate digital CH reuse and active cultural engagement, and (iii) offer digital resources to support research around the topic of digital CH reuse and impact measurement.
- Technological Assets: inDICEs Open Observatory (including the Participatory Space and the Self-Assessment Tool), Visual Analytics Dashboard, Extensions to the Decidim Open Source Software. These assets are focused on creating opportunities for: (i) participatory and transparent deliberation and co-creation processes, (ii) data collection at scale to support evidence-based decision making about the CH sector, and (iii) data-driven research in the CH field.
Overall, inDICEs has added an additional perspective to the growing debate on the importance and function of CH in the context of digital transformation. The project’s knowledge and technological assets bring to the European scenario the opportunity to reflect on and expand the reach of culture.
The inDICEs Open Observatory is where the main results of the project have been made available. It consists of:
- The Participatory Space - a collection of digital tools and spaces to facilitate participatory and data-driven processes such as collective decision-making processes, data collection in a bottom-up way and learning moments.
- The Visual Analytics Dashboard (VAD) - a multilingual content exploration and advanced analytics tool that gives CH practitioners, researchers and policy-makers the means to analyse the public debate across news and social media channels in real-time and assess how audiences can be reached and impact achieved.
- The Self-Assessment Tool (SAT) - an interactive data collection and monitoring tool aimed at building digital transformation capacity through questionnaire and tailored recommendations.
In terms of data analysis, inDICEs explored several alternative sources of data that could help stakeholders of different types such as CH practitioners, researchers and policy makers, in reaching a quantitative understanding of the criticalities and opportunities associated with the rapid development of digital culture. The project identified a number of datasets that could be used for describing the complex modern scenarios of the digitisation of cultural access. The collected datasets are accessible through the Open Observatory and the VAD.
In terms of legal and policy recommendations, inDICEs has delivered: (i) a set of policy recommendations designed to further the democratic and community-focused digital transformation of CHIs, and to support access to, and the reusability of digital CH; (ii) a proposal to change the copyright system at the European level, consisting in an introduction of a European regulation instrument for ensuring access and (re)use of CH resources. As these are high-level policy documents, both can serve efficiently in the long term to support the ongoing discussion on the role and the mission of the CH sector in a digitally transformed realm, especially in the context of access and use of digital collections, copyright reform, participatory and community-focused strategies in CHIs and understanding of the value of assessment of CH for broader society.
Finally, a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) titled “Developing digital transition strategies for Cultural Heritage Institutions” has been designed and developed to support cultural organisations and professionals in understanding the potential of Digital Transformation in the cultural sector and in developing a digital strategy.
- The Participatory Space - a collection of digital tools and spaces to facilitate participatory and data-driven processes such as collective decision-making processes, data collection in a bottom-up way and learning moments.
- The Visual Analytics Dashboard (VAD) - a multilingual content exploration and advanced analytics tool that gives CH practitioners, researchers and policy-makers the means to analyse the public debate across news and social media channels in real-time and assess how audiences can be reached and impact achieved.
- The Self-Assessment Tool (SAT) - an interactive data collection and monitoring tool aimed at building digital transformation capacity through questionnaire and tailored recommendations.
In terms of data analysis, inDICEs explored several alternative sources of data that could help stakeholders of different types such as CH practitioners, researchers and policy makers, in reaching a quantitative understanding of the criticalities and opportunities associated with the rapid development of digital culture. The project identified a number of datasets that could be used for describing the complex modern scenarios of the digitisation of cultural access. The collected datasets are accessible through the Open Observatory and the VAD.
In terms of legal and policy recommendations, inDICEs has delivered: (i) a set of policy recommendations designed to further the democratic and community-focused digital transformation of CHIs, and to support access to, and the reusability of digital CH; (ii) a proposal to change the copyright system at the European level, consisting in an introduction of a European regulation instrument for ensuring access and (re)use of CH resources. As these are high-level policy documents, both can serve efficiently in the long term to support the ongoing discussion on the role and the mission of the CH sector in a digitally transformed realm, especially in the context of access and use of digital collections, copyright reform, participatory and community-focused strategies in CHIs and understanding of the value of assessment of CH for broader society.
Finally, a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) titled “Developing digital transition strategies for Cultural Heritage Institutions” has been designed and developed to support cultural organisations and professionals in understanding the potential of Digital Transformation in the cultural sector and in developing a digital strategy.
inDICEs activities and work aim to contribute to the development of a more innovative and competitive CH sector and to support CHIs in recognising and assessing the value of their actions, especially in the context of digital transformations, thus adding an additional voice to the ongoing European debate on the role of culture and CH in the dynamically evolving, blended reality.
inDICEs perspective pushes for a comprehensive recognition of the social impact of the CH sector on the society. By providing CHIs with tools to assess their digital transformation, monitor performance, and engage in participatory value creation, the project helps institutions improve their capacity to reach wider audiences and increase their visibility, practices, and relevance in a digital age.
In this light, the recommendations - the broad ones, as well as those focusing on legal issues - support the project’s objective to assist CHIs in embracing their public mission in the digital realm. On the other hand, the guidelines for CHIs digital transformation and the self-assessment methodology support CH professionals in their path towards converting digital ambitions into digital strategies and gather data to continuously monitor their performance.
Finally, the research work carried out in the project to define the digital context and the dynamics that underlie the creative and cultural production and participation and to identify the behavioural trends of users, led to the development of the Change Impact Assessment Framework, a tool that provides literature collection, best cases and a detailed theoretical framework made by an eight impact areas matrix for orienting the cultural and creative sector and institutions toward the evaluation of impacts of active cultural participatory activities. The framework, based on the 3.0 Culture perspective – where the participation is effective whether there is a collective proactivity and regards democratic processes of co-creation - was developed from a clear premise: even if literature proves that active cultural participation is the best strategy to create positive impacts in the context of digital cultural co-creation, it is still rarely observed in the European cultural heritage sector. This is where InDICEs aims to generate impact, from motivating the CH sector to consider the importance of understanding that active cultural participation can positively impact communities on various levels and layers, from developing psycho-social abilities to raising awareness and calling to action on global challenges.
inDICEs perspective pushes for a comprehensive recognition of the social impact of the CH sector on the society. By providing CHIs with tools to assess their digital transformation, monitor performance, and engage in participatory value creation, the project helps institutions improve their capacity to reach wider audiences and increase their visibility, practices, and relevance in a digital age.
In this light, the recommendations - the broad ones, as well as those focusing on legal issues - support the project’s objective to assist CHIs in embracing their public mission in the digital realm. On the other hand, the guidelines for CHIs digital transformation and the self-assessment methodology support CH professionals in their path towards converting digital ambitions into digital strategies and gather data to continuously monitor their performance.
Finally, the research work carried out in the project to define the digital context and the dynamics that underlie the creative and cultural production and participation and to identify the behavioural trends of users, led to the development of the Change Impact Assessment Framework, a tool that provides literature collection, best cases and a detailed theoretical framework made by an eight impact areas matrix for orienting the cultural and creative sector and institutions toward the evaluation of impacts of active cultural participatory activities. The framework, based on the 3.0 Culture perspective – where the participation is effective whether there is a collective proactivity and regards democratic processes of co-creation - was developed from a clear premise: even if literature proves that active cultural participation is the best strategy to create positive impacts in the context of digital cultural co-creation, it is still rarely observed in the European cultural heritage sector. This is where InDICEs aims to generate impact, from motivating the CH sector to consider the importance of understanding that active cultural participation can positively impact communities on various levels and layers, from developing psycho-social abilities to raising awareness and calling to action on global challenges.