Linked Heritage Glossary

The term data refers to electronically-stored information or recording, including but not limited to documents, databases, transcripts, and audio/visual recordings.

In the context of the Linked Heritage aggregation and Europeana, the term data is generally referred to as metadata.

See also: Content, Data Exchange Agreement (DEA), Data set, Metadata

The terms under which Europeana and its users can make use of previews and descriptive metadata are established by the Europeana Data Exchange Agreement (DEA). The DEA is the central component of the Europeana Licensing Framework. It structures the relationship between Europeana and its data providers. As of 1 July 2012, the DEA replaced all the existing agreements between Europeana and its data providers and aggregators.

The DEA sets out two simple principles:

1) For all descriptive metadata provided to Europeana, data providers grant Europeana the right to publish the metadata under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. This means that all metadata provided to Europeana can be re-used by third parties without any restrictions.

2) Each digital object (and the associated preview) that is available via Europeana needs to carry a rights label that describes its copyright status. Data providers grant Europeana the right to publish previews provided to Europeana. Previews may not be re-used by third parties unless the rights label related to the object allows such re-use (See: Europeana Available Rights Statements).

Source: Europeana Professional - Data Exchange Agreement

Explore further the Linked Heritage learning objects: Why and how to contribute to Europeana and MINT Services. For a commercial perspective, see also: Public-Private Partnership with Europeana.

See: Content provider

In the aggregation landscape of Europeana, data set (also written dataset) is a collection of structured data supplied by content providers to the European Portal, directly or by means of a content aggregator. Each data set must comprise metadata declined according to the Europeana metadata reference model (ESE / EDM).

In the context of the Linked Heritage project, data set may refer to a single collection of data as well as to a set of collections of data supplied by a single content provider.

Explore further the Linked Heritage learning object: MINT Services.

See: Data set

See: Data Exchange Agreement (DEA)

A digital object is an entity in which one or more content files and their corresponding metadata are united, physically and/or logically, through the use of a digital wrapper. Digital objects (or digital materials) refer to any item that is available digitally.

In the context of the Europeana aggregation landscape, digital objects can be generally referred to as content. Any data about content is encoded into metadata. According to Europeana Data Exchange Agreement, each digital object (and the associated preview) that is available via Europeana needs to carry a rights label that describes its copyright status. Data providers grant Europeana the right to publish previews provided to Europeana. Previews may not be re-used by third parties unless the rights label related to the object allows such re-use (See: Europeana Available Rights Statements).

Explore further the Linked Heritage learning object: Digitisation life cycle

See also: Content, Data, Data Exchange Agreement (DEA), Metadata

Digital preservation can be understood as the series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary, involving the planning, resource allocation, and application of preservation methods and technologies to ensure that digital information of continuing value remains accessible and usable. It combines policies, strategies and actions to ensure access to reformatted and born digital content regardless of the challenges of media failure and technological change. The goal of digital preservation is the accurate rendering of authenticated content over time.

Explore further the Linked Heritage learning object: Digitisation life cycle.

Digitisation (or Digitising) is the representation of an object, image, sound, document or a signal (usually an analog signal) by a discrete set of its points or samples. The result is called digital representation or, more specifically, a digital image, for the object, and digital form, for the signal. Strictly speaking, digitizing means simply capturing an analog signal in digital form. For a document the term means to trace the document image or capture the "corners" where the lines end or change direction.

Explore further the Linked Heritage learning object: Digitisation life cycle.