Amsterdam Museum Linked Open Data

In this document we describe the Amsterdam Museum Linked Open Data set. The dataset is a five-star Linked Data representation and comprises the entire collection of the Amsterdam Museum consisting of more than 70,000 object descriptions. Furthermore, the institution's thesaurus and person authority files used in the object metadata are included in the Linked Data set. The data is mapped to the Europeana Data Model, utilizing Dublin Core, SKOS, RDA-group2 elements and the OAI-ORE model to represent the museum data. Vocabulary concepts are mapped to GeoNames and DBpedia. The two main contributions of this dataset are the inclusion of internal vocabularies and the fact that the complexity of the original dataset is retained

The Chinese From Indonesia in the Netherlands and Their Heritage Chinese Indonesian Heritage Center (CIHC)

Chinese from Indonesia in the Netherlands are (post)colonial migrants who share a long historical tie with the Dutch. In this article the author brings together and focuses on three interconnected subjects: Chinese from Indonesia in the Netherlands; the historical development and present meaning of “heritage”; and the Chinese Indonesian Heritage Center (CIHC). For her research on the Chinese Indonesians in the Netherlands, the author has used the literature available on this minority group. The scarce specific data for this group are part of the explanation of its “invisibility” in society and research, and of the difficulty in quantifying them. The development of heritage as a western concept has led her to the question of what heritage might mean for migrants in their new homeland. The concluding part on the Chinese Indonesian Heritage Center introduces the activities of the Center designed to achieve her goals which are focused on the history of this group

Accurator: Nichesourcing for Cultural Heritage

With more and more cultural heritage data being published online, their usefulness in this open context depends on the quality and diversity of descriptive metadata for collection objects. In many cases, existing metadata is not adequate for a variety of retrieval and research tasks and more specific annotations are necessary. However, eliciting such annotations is a challenge since it often requires domain-specific knowledge. Where crowdsourcing can be successfully used for eliciting simple annotations, identifying people with the required expertise might prove troublesome for tasks requiring more complex or domain-specific knowledge. Nichesourcing addresses this problem, by tapping into the expert knowledge available in niche communities. This paper presents Accurator, a methodology for conducting nichesourcing campaigns for cultural heritage institutions, by addressing communities, organizing events and tailoring a web-based annotation tool to a domain of choice. The contribution of this paper is threefold: 1) a nichesourcing methodology, 2) an annotation tool for experts and 3) validation of the methodology and tool in three case studies. The three domains of the case studies are birds on art, bible prints and fashion images. We compare the quality and quantity of obtained annotations in the three case studies, showing that the nichesourcing methodology in combination with the image annotation tool can be used to collect high quality annotations in a variety of domains and annotation tasks. A user evaluation indicates the tool is suited and usable for domain specific annotation tasks

Assembling the Tree of Life in Europe (AToLE)

A network of scientists under the umbrella of 'Assembling the Tree of Life in Europe (AToLE)' seeks funding under the FP7-Theme: Cooperation - Environment (including Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation) programme of the European Commission.
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MycoBank gearing up for new horizons.

MycoBank, a registration system for fungi established in 2004 to capture all taxonomic novelties, acts as a coordination hub between repositories such as Index Fungorum and Fungal Names. Since January 2013, registration of fungal names is a mandatory requirement for valid publication under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants (ICN). This review explains the database innovations that have been implemented over the past few years, and discusses new features such as advanced queries, registration of typification events (MBT numbers for lecto, epi- and neotypes), the multi-lingual database interface, the nomenclature discussion forum, annotation system, and web services with links to third parties. MycoBank has also introduced novel identification services, linking DNA sequence data to numerous related databases to enable intelligent search queries. Although MycoBank fills an important void for taxon registration, challenges for the future remain to improve links between taxonomic names and DNA data, and to also introduce a formal system for naming fungi known from DNA sequence data only. To further improve the quality of MycoBank data, remote access will now allow registered mycologists to act as MycoBank curators, using Citrix software

The genesis and development of mobile learning in Europe

In the past two decades, European researchers have conducted many significant mobile learning projects. The chapter explores how these projects have arisen and what each one has contributed, so as to show the driving forces and outcomes of European innovation in mobile learning. The authors identify context as a central construct in European researchers’ conceptualizations of mobile learning and examine theories of learning for the mobile world, based on physical, technological, conceptual, social and temporal mobility. The authors also examine the impacts of mobile learning research on educational practices and the implications for policy. Finally, they suggest future challenges for researchers, developers and policy makers in shaping the future of mobile learning

Forgers, connoisseurs, and the Nazi past

The authentication and accurate attribution of art can be a complex issue. Connoisseurship and ethics, politics and the media can get mixed in among the "active ingredients" that can obstruct efforts to correct scholarly misattribution in the sense of having mistaken the work for that of a master. The expertise of forgers Han van Meegeren and Wolfgang Beltracchi went way beyond artistic skill, technical skill, extensive knowledge of art history and the methods employed by the true masters. The connoisseurs who supplied the authentications were giving and receiving something in return, and this caused the ethical lines to blur. Political opportunism enabled van Meegeren to hide his sympathy for the Volkgeist conventions of Nazi art with a clever plot device by which he could demonstrate that he had conned a member of the Nazi elite. The Beltracchis concocted the history of production of a hitherto unknown number of modern art works by linking the fake provenances to pre-packaged narratives that invoked the most sordid elements of the cultural policy of the Third Reich. At their trials, the forgers assumed the role of "masters of ceremonies" who entertained the court staff and spectators. Unsurprisingly, the media conferred folk hero status on them. This article highlights the uncanny parallels and patterns in the art forgery careers of these two forgers, and specifically also in the misattribution of their forged works. Considering how intricate the interdependencies between evidence and beliefs can be, the ethical responsibility of the art trade when forgeries are sold comes into question. More scientific testing continues to expose some of the secrets of master forgers, but no forgery trial, law report, or media report can completely de-contaminate art history. The relevance of information ethics to the study of art history and material culture deserves to be highlighted more frequently