Metadata Fundamentals
This metadata standard, developed by a 1995 international workshop, provides 15 core elements for describing digital resources
What is Dublin Core?
This term describes the gradual loss of data quality in digital files over time due to hardware failure, format obsolescence, or media decay.
What is digital degradation (or bit rot)?
This principle holds that Indigenous communities have the right to govern, protect, and control their own cultural heritage data.
What is Indigenous data sovereignty?
This open-source platform, developed by George Mason University's Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, is one of the three approved platforms for your final project.
What is Omeka?
This user experience principle holds that all digital content should be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust — regardless of a user's ability.
What are the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) principles (or universal design / accessibility standards)?
This Dublin Core element captures the person or organization primarily responsible for creating the content of a resource
What is Creator?
The strategy of converting a digital file from an older format to a currently supported one is called this.
What is migration (or format migration)?
Nicole Strathman's work in Module 13 argues that sometimes the most ethical form of heritage advocacy is fighting for this, rather than universal access.
What is community control (or restricted access)?
This Esri platform allows users to combine maps, multimedia, and narrative text to create web-based digital storytelling experiences.
What is ArcGIS StoryMaps?
In your final exhibit, each of your 15 digital objects must include this contextualizing text — between 150 and 250 words — that connects the object to your theme.
What is interpretation (or object interpretation)?
The principle that metadata should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable is captured in this acronym
What is FAIR?
This preservation strategy maintains the original hardware and software environment needed to run legacy digital content
What is emulation?
The tension between making digital heritage broadly accessible and respecting community cultural protocols is sometimes described using this two-word phrase from critical heritage studies.
What is the access paradox (or "open access vs. cultural sovereignty")?
CollectionBuilder generates digital collection exhibits using this type of static site approach, relying on CSV metadata files and GitHub for hosting.
What is a static site generator (or static website)?
Module 12 examined immersive VR as an accessibility tool — specifically Pop and colleagues' study of this feature, which uses sensory triggers to deepen engagement with virtual heritage environments.
What are immersive triggers (in virtual tours)?
This type of metadata records the technical processes, software, and conditions under which a digital object was created or preserved — essential for long-term authenticity.
What is administrative (or technical/preservation) metadata?
The OAIS model — a foundational framework in digital preservation — stands for this.
What is the Open Archival Information System?
This type of license, commonly used in digital cultural heritage, allows creators to set permissions for reuse while retaining copyright — with variations specifying attribution, non-commercial use, and share-alike requirements.
What is a Creative Commons license?
Spyrou, Hurst, and Krampe's reference architecture proposes using this type of hyper-realistic AI-powered digital avatar to serve as virtual curators and educators in metaverse GLAM environments
What is a metahuman (or virtual human/NPC)?
The Sun et al. study on Dunhuang murals used VR not just for public engagement but for this core heritage function — documenting fragile physical objects in immersive digital form before further deterioration.
What is digital preservation (or documentation of at-risk cultural heritage)?
When a metadata schema uses controlled vocabulary drawn from an established thesaurus rather than free-text description, it is said to use this type of value qualifier.
What is an authority-controlled or controlled vocabulary term (e.g., Library of Congress Subject Headings)?
Dragomir and Dragomir's 2025 study applies this type of AI system — combining neural networks with fuzzy logic — to predict deterioration in physical cultural heritage objects.
What is a hybrid neuro-fuzzy system?
The concept of "radical trust" in digital heritage contexts refers to institutions doing this with user-generated content and community-led curation.
What is relinquishing institutional control (or sharing curatorial authority with communities)?
Canet Sola and Guljajeva's "Quantum Est in Libris" installation used two specific AI video generation models from this company to transform archival diary texts into moving images
What is Runway (specifically Runway GEN-3 and GEN-4)?
This concept — explored in Module 9 or 10 and central to digital cultural heritage ethics — holds that institutions must provide not just technical access to digitized collections but also the cultural context necessary for communities to understand and interpret their own heritage meaningfully.
What is cultural competency (or culturally responsive description / community-centered access)?