The virtual material related to heritage that universities, research centers, entities and museums hold today is increasingly varied and abundant, so there is a pressing need for specialized personnel able to ensure its conservation, cataloguing and classification. Museums today have conservation experts to organize and disseminate collections, pedagogical departments, and field archaeologists, among other professionals, but there is not yet a standard figure charged with the conservation of digital heritage and having the requisite competencies to do so.
To create this professional profile, the European Dcbox project came about, in which the University of Cordoba is participating together with universities, research centers and companies from Italy, Cyprus, Serbia and Portugal. Each of the partners that make up this collaborative project is assigned a task, with a view to launching a pilot project that has just started and that is scheduled to end in December 2024.
At present the Cyprus Institute of Technology is spearheading the project, as it is in charge of the initial part, consisting of analyzing, at the European level, good practices regarding digital heritage.
The researchers in the HUM-882 group at the University of Córdoba, attached to the Research, Innovation and Competitiveness Unit for Heritage, aka the Unidad Patricia, Carlos Márquez, Massimo Gasparini, Juan Carlos Moreno, Alexis Maldonado and Antonio Monterroso, its coordinator; are in charge of designing the competencies that those who are professionally dedicated to the conservation of digital content must possess.
This team at the Cordoban institution has been charged with creating the learning modules for possible future studies in Digital Heritage Conservation derived from this pilot project, for the training of professionals responsible for determining how digital material is handled, how it is presented, how it is conserved, deciding the most suitable storage formats to guarantee its durability, etc. These digital contents range from file digitization, to 3D modeling, the creation of digital twins of collector's items, virtual reconstructions, videos, photogrammetry etc.
The major activity with digital material carried out by the unit known as the Unidad Patricia, involving the conservation, acquisition, processing and dissemination of data, is the main reason why the UCO got involved in the European project.
According to Monterroso "today the virtual contents for any heritage, museum or archaeological context are not standardized, on many occasions, and not everyone is trained in the use and design of the material. Therefore, what Dcbox aims to do is to integrate the digital into the pure field of conservation, thereby regulating it and augmenting its quality." According to the coordinator of the project in Córdoba, this project aims to have "a regulation for the training of those who manage digital resources, like any other heritage resource, featuring quality results."
Dcbox, a project led by the Polytechnic University of Mache (Italy), is complemented by the development of an online platform featuring content and applications of virtual experiences on heritage and methodologies through which one can easily learn.
The major activity with digital material carried out by the unit known as the Unidad Patricia, involving the conservation, acquisition, processing and dissemination of data, is the main reason why the UCO got involved in the European project.
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.