Hi, Part of my work is for Commons Machinery (commonsmachinery.se) and we are applying for an EU grant. As part of this process we would like to include European researchers interested in culture and metadata. This should be a good opportunity for PhD students. Please contact me if you are interested. See the short proposal sketched out below regards Mathias *The **Snappy Title **Project* Commons Machinery and partners are planning to apply for funding for a project, the goal of which is to bridge the gap between audiences and artists by making cultural material more useable online. Succinctly, we're developing tools that make it possible to link back to the original context of images, even when those images are distributed and shared widely online. With this e-mail, we're looking for partners in academia, among cultural institutions, artists, and from the community itself -- as thought partners, active participants in the project, participants in our reference group or in other forms. *The Funding* We're applying for a small scale Cooperation Project under Creative Europe, with an expected deadline for submission the 1st of October 2014. The EU funds up to EUR 200,000 for small scale projects, and require a 40% co-financing by applicants. We're looking for a project that lasts 1½-2 years, with a start date in May 2015 - but we'll draft the final details in collaboration. Organizations from any part of the world may join, but there are restrictions on the funding that could be made available for organizations from outside of the EU (and some other countries, full list on http://ec.europa.eu/culture/opportunities/documents/eligible-countries_en.pd...). *The****Background* Our online environment is awash with images, however many of these images have been moved from their original context and no longer retain the information that gives them meaning. When organizations and individuals put images online they are often viewed in within a single web domain, collection or authorship. However, due to the ease in copying, images are often removed from their original contexts and, through this, they lose some of their meaning and value; it becomes impossible to trace them back to their origin. From a practical point of view, it's also an issue for users who want to correctly reuse an image in accordance with copyright legislation; they must save copyright and other information to adequately attribute the creator, and maintain this information through all stages of their work. This system is unwieldy, complex, and unreliable. Using new technology with tool integration, information about the images could seamlessly follow the image without effort from the users. This system would not be limited to copyright basics such as authorship but can include a range of additional information about the image, for example, where the original is, which collection it belongs to, which organization retains rights to the image (if any!), and where users can learn more about the image. Such information could be automatically visualized and made available to users, even when they encounter images outside of their original context, for instance when an image has been shared online, posted in a forum, or made available on another web site. This is of interest to organizations connected with the image (such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums). Such organizations, as well as the artists themselves and the audience, would all benefit from having a stronger association between each and every digital image and its' context. *The **Solution **& Our Hypothesis* Commons Machinery is working to create an infrastructure and the tools needed to make this association persistent. Our Elogio web service will enable an audience to save and use images, while keeping all relevant contextual information intact. It will also allow holders of information about images to make such information available through this common infrastructure in a way that when the audience encounter their images online, the contextual information is displayed, and when a user saves or uses an image, the original context is carried over into the resulting work. Our hypothesis is that if this information is made available to the audience, it would increase the bond between audiences and artists, and between audiences and cultural institutions. By visualizing the context in which images used online originally has appeared, we believe that the viewers will feel a stronger connection with the artists and the institutions holding the originals, leading to a potential in retaining and enlarging their audience, as well as improving the experience of viewing images online and deepening the relationships. *The Project & The **Test* The technology is still in its early stages, and our hypothesis is just this -- a hypothesis. Through this project, we would hope to learn more about how this kind of technology can be used for audience engagement, and if it does indeed lead to deeper and more relevant relationships. We envision a project where each main partner has specific and complementary skill sets and expertise. The content providers -- cultural institutions -- know their content and are interested in making it more usable to the public while ensuring that links back to their institution remain intact. Our systems developers will collaborate with these participating institutions in tailoring the system to their needs, providing education and training, and gathering data on its use. Research partners will be engaged in the gathering and analysis of the empirical data through qualitative interviews with the participants, surveys among users, and analysis of the data generated from the use of the system. Researchers will be actively involved by conducting in depth interviews with stakeholders, gathering empirical data about each of their needs. The data from the use of the system together with interviews will provide material for researchers working to evaluate the system in the wider context of sharing cultural material online. Community partners will be engaged throughout the project in raising awareness and interest in the project and the work by holding workshops, training sessions and facilitating other meetings involving the projects' stakeholder groups. The project will provide education and training materials about metadata and its usage to help content providers and individuals alike. *What we're looking for* If you, as an individual, as representing an organisation or institution, or your organization or institution as a whole, has an interest in the project, we invite you to email us at hello@commonsmachinery.se <mailto:hello@commonsmachinery.se> to introduce yourself. As mentioned in the beginning, we're looking for participants in our reference group of the project that will continuously influence the project by giving their thoughts on issues we'll be facing along the way. We're also looking for GLAM institutions and other information holders who may want to participate in the project by delivering information to it, and, with our help, engaging with their own audiences to try the tools (primarily browser extensions). We can only have a very limited number of such core partners though, but we'll aim to make the instructions available broadly so that others can also participate. In terms of research partners, we're looking for people and universities with a background and interest in researching these kinds of audience engagements through technology, or who have other complementary research agendas which they feel are interesting to explore in collaboration. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mathias Klang, Associate Professor, University of Göteborg Website: http://klangable.com US Cell: 215 882 0989 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~