Objektdaten und Objektbiografie in NFDI4Objects

OBJEKTDATEN UND OBJEKTBIOGRAFIE IN NFDI4OBJECTS Förderkennzeichen: 501836407 NFDI4Objects ist Teil der Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften 5.12.2025 Anja Gerber, [email protected] SHORT INTRODUCTION TO NFDI4OBJECTS Who we are NFDI4Objects aims to meet the infrastructural needs of researchers and practitioners who work on the material remains of around three million years of human and environmental history. What brings us together The specific needs of our community stem from the connection between objects and their archaeological contexts and often complex object biographies. We are a consortium of ●Universities & Universities of Applied Sciences ●Museums & Collections ●Non-University Research Institution ●Societies & Association ●Libraries & Archives ●Authorities (State / Federal) What NFDI4Objects offers… Enrichment of humanities consortiathrough object-related scientific data Expertise and offerings in the intersection of humanities and information sciences ●Study programs: Archaeoinformatics, Digital Humanities, Computational Archaeology ●Data quality ●Data literacy ●Software, interfaces & standards ●Interoperability, in particular the development and harmonization of metadata standards for a cross-consortium group of users What needs to be done ●Bridging the ‘digital divide’ between users and specialists, including between sub-disciplines ●Integration of our work into a uniform research data management strategy ●Creation of a broad range of services that supports the entire community ●Establishment of data-adequate long-term archiving (> 50 years) ●Expansion of data-supported networking with engineering, natural sciences, life sciences and social sciences ●Klassik Stiftung Weimar ○Anja Gerber ○Dr. Dirk Wintergrün (Project Lead) ●FAU Competence Center for Research Data and Information ○Dr. Sarah Wagner ○Prof. Dr. Michael Kohlhase ○Prof. Dr. Günther Görz ●Overview of the metadata and standards data, vocabularies, ontologies and data formats used in TA 1 -4 being collected in the surveys will be compiled ●Needs of the community to describe an object will be identified https://www.nfdi4objects.net/en/portal/tas/ta6/ TA 6 Team “Integration and Harmonisation” (KSW & FAU) ●Objects → related to place and time (e. g. place of origin, place of discovery, place of storage, always in the context of time periods...) ●Mapping of places and processes (who, when, where, what) → Object Biographies ○Modelling with attribute events ●Uncertainty and inaccuracies (‘Looks Celtic, 300-600 BC?’, ‘Elbe site’) ●Relation to scientific methods (measurements, analyses...) ●Heterogeneous and unstructured data (e. g. free text fields and text documents) ●Data needs to be non-public due to theft and looted excavations ●Special vocabularies hidden in various systems or under development to cover own data collection needs Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Direktion Museum Research Data in NFDI4Objects CIDOC CRM and LIDO as base ●Proven tools for standardisation in the field of digital cultural heritage ●Annotation of various file types, such as images, 3D, text ●Focus on detailed presentation of provenance information to illustrate the history of an object from its creation to its loss/current location ●Consideration of attributions to actors and groups, places, events and time periods even outside the collection, museum or own research context ●Goal: To offer information outside one's own (collection) context in a comprehensible and reusable form ●Developed by the Documentation Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM CIDOC) ●Ontology-based standard for representing cultural heritage data in the semantic web ●Consists of approx. 90 classes (e.g. physical object, place, actor, time, events, activities, etc.) and approx. 150 relations/properties for contextualising the information ●Ensures long-term interpretability and interoperability ●Event-centred ●Version 7.1.3. as the current ISO 21127 standard Starting point for developments in NFDI4Objects CIDOC CRM and LIDO as base ●XML schema for exchange and standardised recording of object information from relational databases ●Aggregation of cultural heritage data (harvesting format) ●Based on CIDOC CRM, CDWA (Categories for the description of works of art) and Spectrum ●Few mandatory elements, therefore various application profiles, e.g. DDB, colonial contexts, painting and graphic art, sculpture, architecture ●Contains Metadata on the Physical Object, Metadata on Reproductions/Representations, Administrative Metadata ●LIDO terminologies (value lists) CIDOC CRM and LIDO as base ●Supporting museums and collections in publishing their object data online ●Low-threshold communication of relevant standards (CIDOC CRM, LIDO, EDM, etc.) ●Awareness of data quality ●Facilitating the integration of standard data and controlled vocabularies ●Important use case: data exchange and data delivery to portals ●Concordances with other standards and specifications ●Provides recording tips and vocabulary recommendations ●Collaboration with software developers about the implementation of the Minimum Record Recommendation Minimum Record Recommendation www.minimaldatensatz.de Minimum Record Recommendation Working Group LIDO for Archaeology ●Formulating the needs and requirements within the consortium, consistent with the development of object biographies based on CIDOC CRM in NFDI4Objects ○Involving all stakeholders in the consortium in order to be able to represent the archaeological perspective appropriately ○e.g., conservation and restoration in Task Area 4 ●2024 close coordination with LIDOde working group ●establishment of a sub-working group, as the University of Munich Library has similar requirements ●Work with initial use cases to formulate the roadmap Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Direktion Museen Working Group LIDO for Archaeology Link to the project: https://discover.ub.uni-muenchen.de/palenque Link to the project: https://anneherz.github.io/ProM/ Working Group LIDO for Archaeology ●Official launch of the working group in July 2025 ●Coordination by Andreas Frech (Munich University Library) and Anja Gerber (NFDI4Objects, KSW) ●Inclusion of various disciplines ●Creation of a roadmap → Goals ○Formulation of use cases ○Application of these use cases to the current LIDO version ○Consideration of previous application profiles ○Formulation of desiderata ○Development of proposals ○Discussion of these with the LIDOde AG ●Step-by-step creation of guidelines with the aim of creating an application profile and a manual Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Direktion Museen Example of a current discussion: Transition from actor to natural object (“thing”) → How do you describe the person as an actor, how do you describe that person's bones? How do you deal with multiple entries? Actor during his/her lifetime commissioner of his/her own grave dies and is buried Find context Bones biologica l object humanmade object Iconography Representation as Tomb Inscription multiple occupancy Burial Objects is discovered Conservation Object Core Metadata Profile (OCMDP) ●Workflow: Development of an Object Core Metadata Profile Terminology to create a crosswalk to the NFDI Core Metadata Profile (DACT, schema.org, DataCite) using common core elements, among other things. ●Result: Pre-alpha version of an OCMDP Terminology in SKOS format. ●Potential: Generation of NFDI-compliant metadata for the integration of NFDI4Objects metadata into the NFDI federated knowledge graph. Florian Thiery, Anja Gerber, Lasse Mempel-Länger, CC BY 4.0. Material Heritage Crosswalk) Ontology (MaCHeCO) ●Workflow: Development of a Material Heritage Crosswalk Ontology to map interdisciplinary ontologies to CIDOC CRM classes using crosswalks. ●Result: Pre-alpha version of a MaCHeCO as OWL for mapping between, for example, CIDOC CRM, BFO, NFDI Core. ●Potential: Generation of NFDI-compliant (meta)data for the integration of NFDI4Objects data into the NFDI4Objects Knowledge Graph and also the NFDI federated Knowledge Graph. Florian Thiery, CC BY 4.0 Martin Doerr, via “The CIDOC CRM - an Ontological Approach to Semantic Interoperability of Metadata” (2003). OBJECT BIOGRAPHY IN NFDI4OBJECTS Fig.: Schematic representation of an object biography © Sarah Wagner, CC-BY 4.0 What is an Object Biography ●Transfers the concept of biography to material cultural heritage ●Attaches any information (contexts, paths, meanings, interpretations) to an object ○Objects (artifacts, plants, animals, rocks) ○Phases and contexts ○Actors, places, time (who? where? when? context?) ○Sources (pictorial and written material, data, findings, ...) ●Contexts/events include, for example ○Origin (commissioning, creation, production) ○Use ○Encounter (“discovery,” excavation, etc.) ○Collection/museum context ○Change of ownership/possession ○Reception history and cultural actions ○Modifications (addition of inscriptions, conservation and restoration measures) ○Research activities What is an Object Biography Fig.: Schematic representation of an object biography © Sarah Wagner, CC-BY 4.0 Fig.: Unknown (Apulian), red-figure oinochoe with cloverleaf-shaped mouth, 370 to 340 BC, Klassik Stiftung Weimar ●Introduced in academia by anthropologist Igor Kopytoff in 1986 in ‘The Biography of Things’: ○Objects are individuals due to their specific meaning and individual history. ○Focuses on social relationships between object and actor. ○Transitional moments are central → breaks in context and meaning. ●Term used especially in material culture ○such as art history, ethnology or archaeology, disciplines that explore the ‘life story’ of objects. What is an Object Biography Fig.: Crucifixion of Christ, montage, Bad Wilsnack, St. Nicholas Church (1460/70), CVMA Germany Potsdam/Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, photo: Renate Roloff/Holger Kupfer. ●Criticism of the term (e.g. Hans Peter Hahn 2015; Kim Siebenhüner 2017): risk of simplification; ○biography suggests that something is alive, is an actor, has a beginning and an end; ○further problems arise with individual objects vs. multi-part objects (e.g. buildings); ○fragmentation (e.g. with shards: what is the main object?); ●Objects do not live or act, but can certainly have an inviting or appealing character, which in turn leads to certain ways of dealing with them (Jung) ●Peter Braun and Matthias Jung: Merit of the term in that new questions about objects can be asked and changes in meaning are brought to the fore. ●Metaphorical use of the term ●→ Representation of the object's history What is an Object Biography ●Transfers the concept of object biography to the digital realm; ●Event-based data model: contextualisation of assigned object information, time, place, actors and sources across various events from creation/production to the present day; ●Who, when, where, what, how ●Networks data and information that is usually heterogeneous and distributed across various institutions; ●Object biography as a ‘maximum data set’ ●Takes into account information provenance, ambiguity and contradictions What is a digital Object Biography ●Enables integration of heterogeneous and distributed information, ●detailed presentation of provenance information above ownership/acquisition, ●based on the indication of the origin of information, as reconstruction, ●creates a meta-perspective on knowledge objects, as previous object documentation has been carried out from the perspective of the current collection, ●equal account of attributions by actors and groups outside a collection, a museum or a scientific context, such as societies of origin, popular culture, ec Chances of the digital Object Biography Beginning of Existence [E63] Object [E22] Production [E12] Time Assignment [E13] Actor Assignment [E13] Place Assignment [E13] p140i was attributed by Person [E21] Group [E39] Corporate Body [E40] Source [E73] Verbatim [E31] Source Reference [E73] p129i is subject of p141 assigned p106i forms part of p9 consists of p70i is documented in p92i was brought into existence by Example: a production event [E12] in the object history to which an actor is assigned [E13]. Characteristics of the Data Model: Assigments Beginning of Existence [E63] Object [E22] Production [E12] Time Assignment [E13] Actor Assignment [E13] Place Assignment [E13] p140i was attributed by Person [E21] Group [E39] Corporate Body [E40] Source [E73] Verbatim [E31] Source Reference [E73] p129i is subject of p141 assigned p106i forms part of p9 consists of p70i is documented in p92i was brought into existence by Characteristics of the Data Model: Assigments https://wiss-ki.eu/ Implementation in WissKI ●Virtual research environment for scientific research data ○For documenting, researching and publishing cultural heritage ○DFG project, LIS (2009–2011, 2014–2016) ○Open source and free to download ○Web-based ○Modular and customisable ○Support for CIDOC CRM for semantic data indexing ○Ideal for the creation and use of linked open data ○Standard data support (GND, Geonames, Getty, etc.) ○Import/export interfaces (SPARQL, ODBC, REST API) Architecture of WissKI 10 ●Tool for implementing data models ●Mapping semantic paths to entry forms in the front end ●in most cases using CIDOC CRM WissKI Pathbuilder The Data Model in the WissKI Pathbuilder View of the WissKI Pathbuilder with the semantic paths of the object biography (excerpt) View of the WissKI Pathbuilder with the semantic paths of the object biography (production – actor assignment) The Data Model in the WissKI Pathbuilder Our Use Cases in WissKI ●Please feel free to contact us! Task Area 6 Team “Integration & Harmonisation” ○Anja Gerber, Klassik Stiftung Weimar, [email protected] ○Sarah Wagner, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, sarah.[email protected] ●Our Use Cases: ○https://nfdi4objects.wisski.data.fau.de/use _cases ●The NFDI4Objects Object Ontology: ○https://github.com/nfdi4objects/n4o-ontol ogy Interested in creating an abject Biography? https://nfdi4objects.wisski.data.fau.de/use_cases HANDS ON DATA TOWARDS OBJECT BIOGRAPHY