HERITRACE: A User-Friendly Semantic Data Editor with Change Tracking and Provenance Management for Cultural Heritage Institutions

Arcangelo Massari; Silvio Peroni

doi:10.6092/issn.2532-8816/21218

Authors

Arcangelo Massari University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8420-0696

Arcangelo Massari holds a Bachelor's degree in Humanities and a Master's degree in Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge from the University of Bologna. He also works as a developer at OpenCitations, a not-for-profit organization promoting open scholarship. During his tenure as a research fellow, Arcangelo contributed significantly to the development of OpenCitations Meta, a comprehensive database that stores and provides access to bibliographic metadata for publications indexed by OpenCitations.

Currently, Arcangelo is pursuing a PhD in Cultural Heritage in the Digital Ecosystem at the University of Bologna, while simultaneously working towards a joint PhD in Engineering Technology at the University of Leuven. He is an active participant in the Doctoral Programme in Cultural Heritage, coordinated by UnaEuropa. His doctoral research centers on the development of tailored interfaces designed to streamline the curatorial workflows of archivists, librarians, and museologists. This work aims to create versatile tools capable of supporting a wide variety of data formats and database systems used in the preservation of cultural heritage.
Silvio Peroni University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0530-4305

Silvio Peroni holds a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and he is an Associate Professor at the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies, University of Bologna. He is an expert in document markup and semantic descriptions of bibliographic entities using Semantic Web technologies.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2532-8816/21218

Keywords:

AIUCD2024, Data Curation, Provenance, Change-tracking, Semantic Web Technologies

Abstract

HERITRACE is a data editor designed for galleries, libraries, archives and museums, aimed at simplifying data curation while enabling non-technical domain experts to manage data intuitively without losing its semantic integrity. While the semantic nature of RDF can pose a barrier to data curation due to its complexity, HERITRACE conceals this intricacy while preserving the advantages of semantic representation. The system natively supports provenance management and change tracking, ensuring transparency and accountability throughout the curation process. Although HERITRACE functions effectively out of the box, it offers a straightforward customization interface for technical staff, enabling adaptation to the specific data model required by a given collection. Current applications include the ParaText project, and its adoption is already planned for OpenCitations. Future developments will focus on integrating the RDF Mapping Language (RML) to enhance compatibility with non-RDF data formats, further expanding its applicability in digital heritage management.

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HERITRACE: A User-Friendly Semantic Data Editor with Change Tracking and Provenance Management for Cultural Heritage Institutions

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