Starting points and set-up
Museums, research institutes, libraries and other knowledge organisations increasingly turn to the Internet for the production, presentation and the management of their knowledge.
The amount of information that becomes available via the web increases each day. Knowledge institutes are continuously concerned with the question of how they can (1) attract information seekers to their website, and (2) how they can offer users optimal searchability once they have accessed thewebsite. The RNA project focuses on the second aspect.
Starting points
The starting point of the RNA project is that the producing and presenting knowledge and making it searchable works best in a network environment. This can be a network within a knowledge institute or a network shared between organisations.
Collaboration in the field of availability, searchability and presentation of knowledge is only possible if reference structure, without losing their (local) functions, are linked in such a way that a 'reference continuum' is created for knowledge producers and information seekers alike. The RNA proejct looks for reliable, efficient and cost-efficient ways of achieving such a continuum.
The project focuses on to important aspects:
- linking relatively small reference structures in order to bring about a coherent network of concepts, and
- the dynamic linking of concepts and content.
Set-up
The RNA project experiments with a range of solutions for digital knowledge sharing. We deploy technologies that have already proven themselves in practice, but have not or hardly been associated, or have not yet been applied in the field of (in particular) cultural heritage.
The RNA project applies the solutions in a number of cases that together provide a representative picture of the urgent questions in the field of knowlegde sharing to which many knowledge institutions are currently trying to find an answer.
Reference structure
Collective term for thesauri, keyword lists, ontologies, topic maps etc. A reference structure is an ordered set of words and word groups of which the form and the interrelations have been documented, and that is aimed at making content searchable.
Reference network
Set of reference structures that are linked in such a way that a transparant whole is created for editors (content managers) and end-users alike. Content that refers to concepts in individual reference structures is made accessible through the links as though it forms part of a single collection.