Visual analytics of Europeana digital library for reuse in learning environments. A premier systematic study
| Published date | 09 October 2017 |
| Date | 09 October 2017 |
| Pages | 840-859 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-04-2016-0114 |
| Author | Paulo Alonso Gaona-Garcia,Salvador Sanchez-Alonso,Ana Fermoso García |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management |
Visual analytics of Europeana
digital library for reuse in
learning environments
A premier systematic study
Paulo Alonso Gaona-Garcia
Faculty of Engineering, Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas,
Bogota, Colombia
Salvador Sanchez-Alonso
Department of Computer Science, University of Alcala de Henares,
Madrid, Spain, and
Ana Fermoso García
Department of Computer Science, Pontifical University of Salamanca,
Salamanca, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to assess whether Europeana can be really seen as the new “Library
of Alexandria”for digital resources from the perspective of teachers, academics and researchers that might
want to retrieve and reuse those resources for learning purposes.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors define a systematic method for studying Europeana digital
resources and their potential for reuse in e-learning environments. To achieve this, the authors explore the
coverage of digital resources when searching information about a specific area. The paper studies
the relevance of the results (thematic coverage) provided by queries targeting the resources’metadata
elements defined by the EDM Europeana model. All the data collected for this study from Europeana digital
resources are the result of four explorations since 2012-2016.
Findings –The autors found that Europeana as a digital library has good levels of coverage of digital
resources for those terms in the AAT thesaurus explored (terms from the “Styles and Periods”subset).
This subsetwas selected as an exampleof faceted search given thatit is a common search topic in theacademic
environment.However, it is importantto remark the use of common vocabularywords provided by participants
in order to obtain relevantresults of search based on specific knowledgeareas defined by AAT terms.
Research limitations/implications –This research used a relatively small sample size of resources which
may not be representative of the general size of Europeana digital resources. However, the results are
illustrative as they are based on a specific knowledge area of AAT (118 terms) which contains very common
topics used in high school courses by students and teachers in the field of art and cultural heritage. The study
also aspires to provide a systematic method for conducting future studies in other knowledge areas.
Originality/value –The coverage study aims to analyze if Europeana is a digital library thatteachers could
use for the development of learning objects in specific knowledge areas, through the reuse of free/open access
digital resources.
Keywords Visual analytics, Digital libraries, Information services, Knowledge management system,
Query languages
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Europeana was the result of a flagship European project aimed at creating the modern
“digital library of Alexandria.”A massive aggregator of digital resources (Purday, 2009),
Europeana provides access to millions of resources on cultural heritage contributed by
European museums, libraries, archives and cultural centers. The existence of such a huge
repository provides new opportunities. Content providers –i.e. museums, archives and
libraries –will see an increase in the number of visitors to their collections thanks to being
Online Information Review
Vol. 41 No. 6, 2017
pp. 840-859
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-04-2016-0114
Received 20 April 2016
Revised 4 May 2017
Accepted 15 June 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
840
OIR
41,6
part of the Europeana network. Professionals in the cultural heritage sector will benefit from
new ways of information exchange. Learning professionals perceive Europeana as a vast
source of easily accessible educational resources ready to use and reuse. This list may be
extended as other actors might find their own interest and applications. However, this paper
focuses on the educational opportunities of Europeana only.
Digital libraries like Europeana represent an extraordinary opportunity for the
educational community. Teachers, learners, course designers, learning object creators
and other actors can all benefit from the availability of thousands of digital resources and
(re-)use them for educational purposes. However, there are areas which need to be tackled
with the highest urgency and importance in order to bridge the gap between digital
Libraries and e-learning. Some of these are, e.g. understanding better the information needs
and digital environments of learning, analyzing e-learning needs contents in different
current environments, providing tools and learning resources or rebranding digital libraries
as a prime learning resource (Dobreva et al., 2015).
Moreover, it is not difficult to think of other requirements. We believe that before
considering a digital library as a source of useful educational resources, it needs to
guarantee at least two basic requisites:
•to offer a sufficient number of resources for all subjects in the library domain;
i.e. adequate coverage of all knowledge areas; and
•to facilitate effective search mechanisms allowing users to find and retrieve resources
according to given criteria; i.e. easy and reliable search.
Considering the first requirement, the adequate coverage of all knowledge areas in a
domain, Europeana provides one of the largest open data sets released in the world of
libraries, museums and archives. However, throughout its development, a number of
difficulties related to the lack of a uniform distribution of digital resources along all the
knowledge areas in the cultural heritage domain has been evident. Some of these
deficiencies, such as the insufficient multilingual support and limited variety of descriptions,
have been already noticed (Dekkers et al., 2009). Other authors emphasized that Europeana
should be characterized not only by its volume, but instead by its trusted sources, ease of
use, visibility of content providers and aggregators, and other features like data availability
through its Application Programming Interface (Concordia et al., 2010). The need for
addressing these issues pushed Europeana to improve its data exchange model to facilitate
a higher semantic functionality with aggregators and content providers (Doerr et al., 2010)
but, after all, Europeana still offers today a non-uniform coverage from several perspectives
such as thematic coverage (i.e. classification of resources based on knowledge area by
means of a simple knowledge organization system), language support, intellectual property
rights, and others.
In spite of the above-mentioned lacks, Europeana has the essential elements and
technical features –e.g. content management, information retrieval features,
metadata management, distributed database management, a theoretical and practical
framework aimed to reuse digital resources –that would facilitate the development of
learning objects to external actors. Therefore,thequestioniswhetherEuropeanaisready
to be used as a source of educational resources in digital format. To answer this question
was the final motivation behind this paper. This is really a current concern in Europeana,
proven by the published next steps on increasing the use of digital cultural heritage in
education and other environments (Europeana, 2016a). The Europeana foundation
proposes structured dialog between policy makers, cultural heritage institutions and
educators to improve access and to reduce duplication effort; emphasizing on
the development of inclusive and accessible digital learning resources, prioritizing the
provision of “fit for education and learning”content by cultural heritage institutions and
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