This piece was written by Nicole McNeilly, Saiyyna Vasileva, Matilde Brambilla, Ping-Yi Lin and Eleni Hamhougia. With thanks to the Impact Centre Erasmus, Erasmus University, Rotterdam (Ellen Loots, Marjelle Oosterling-Vermeulen and Emiel Gieles).
What is reuse and why is it important?
While different definitions and understandings exist, the Europeana Initiative defines reuse as the ability to ‘make use of a Digital Object or Metadata that is available online, through the acts of sharing, copying, researching, displaying, modifying or publishing’. The goal of this research was to help us move forward not only in measuring the instances of the reuse of Europe’s digital heritage content, but also the potential impact created by this reuse and its contribution to Europe’s triple social, digital and environmental transformation.
More than 59 million items from over 3,500 data providers are available on the Europeana website. 42% of this content is available to be freely reused by anyone. Our research and experience has shown that there are specific audiences that can really benefit from enjoying and reusing heritage, like educators, researchers, creatives and those in the tourism sector.
What’s the problem?
Thanks to research conducted by Europeana Foundation intern Saiynna Vasileva and students Matilde Brambilla, Ping-Yi Lin and Eleni Hamhougia from the Erasmus group researching the reuse of digital cultural heritage in education, we’ve confirmed that measuring reuse is (still) hard. There is a 'lack of systematic analysis and mapping' of reuse in the field of digital cultural heritage. It’s still an emerging field, with standardised approaches still developing. The challenges of measuring reuse are similar across different sectors, including education, creative industries or tourism.
Empirical, contextual studies mostly rely on types of qualitative research such as interviews and case studies, with little quantitative, big data or automated research. It is challenging to measure, in a standardised way, the value or impact of data reuse. Qualitative research and approaches to tracking reuse offers a lot of value in addition to quantitative metrics and must therefore be well resourced.
Measuring the reuse and impact of objects made available through Europeana.eu
Looking at how often items are downloaded from Europeana.eu is one possible indicator of reuse. However, quantitative indicators give us little insight as to the quality of the experience and engagement. What is done with the object once it has been downloaded? What value does this bring to the reuser and what impact does this create in society?
Many objects on Europeana.eu are free to download to use and enjoy without any restrictions. Removing such barriers to reuse is really important to the Europeana Initiative. However, this means that we lack ways to directly survey the reusers of our content.
For the most part, we rely on reusers sharing how they are reusing the data. Different studies mention the value of anecdotal stories in tracking and understanding reuse cases and their impact. Being in direct contact with reusers helps us to build case studies and learn how to support different types of reuse and reuse audiences.
Europeana initiatives like the Digital Storytelling Festival or GIF IT UP teach us a lot about how our objects can be reused and create value. Overall, however, it’s much more common to track reuse when it is shared on social media. The most popular metrics of use and reuse include the number of total downloads, clicks, hits and social media metrics. It was ‘often the data that were technically simplest to collect [that were collected], instead of data that would have been useful for communicating the value of their online collections’.
Reuse of 3D objects
3D reuse is already a part of many initiatives in the tourism field. Virtual experience applications and projects (including storytelling through virtual exhibitions) boomed during the COVID-19 lockdowns when a number of museums developed 3D online tours to attract visitors.
3D content is also a big priority of the data space. As outlined in the European Commission’s 2021 Recommendations for a common Europeana data space for cultural heritage, the goal is that Member States collectively contribute over 16 million records by 2030 and prioritise the 3D digitisation of at-risk and nationally-valued heritage monuments. The value of high quality 3D content for reuse is frequently referenced: it supports heritage preservation and restoration, immersive learning experiences and increased accessibility and inclusivity; and inspires new creativity or innovation and audience engagement with heritage.
However, what we don’t yet know is what type of impact the reuse of 3D content creates for reusers or for society and if this value is different to other object types. This is a new area of study: our research found no specific studies that differentiate between 3D reuse and the reuse of other digitised cultural heritage object types, except for the reuse of 3D in VR/AR/MR applications.
Learning from indigenous heritage
Studies that focus on digitised indigenous collections, reuse by indigenous communities and its impact tend to consider social and emotional values. They also adopt theoretical frameworks that help to categorise and study the impact of digitisation and reuse in a more thoughtful way. A study published in 2022 suggested that the numeric metrics do not capture community impact: instead, stories and narrative-driven accounts can offer better insights into the impact of digitised collections for communities.
Categories of the type of impact that digital collections bring to indigenous communities can be used as a method of analysing more broadly the social impact of digital collections, as this is applicable to many different reuse different communities. Reports that consider indigenous communities and archives also emphasise a focus on quality over quantity, and ‘slowing down’ to pay attention to how knowledge is preserved and passed on.
Future opportunities for measuring and understanding the value of reuse
Measuring the progress of digitisation in Europe’s digitisation sector, beyond the metrics of what is provided to Europeana and more generally, accounted for nationally, is a challenge.
Our research has unearthed a few additional indicators that might help us to measure the value of reuse in this bigger picture. We need to look differently at different reuse audiences, like education and tourism, because we can’t expect all reuse trends and experiences to be the same.
Importantly, our research has confirmed what had previously been assumed: that tracking reuse cases is hard and requires, for now, significant manual attention and effort. At the same time, new (automated) tools should be explored, including AI, for their ability to capture more effectively and at scale qualitative reuse cases. A combination of the two approaches is valuable. Where the Europeana Initiative participates or leads initiatives to facilitate and encourage reuse, we will continue to look in more detail at the impact created. Doing so might help to surface more qualitative indicators of reuse that would be of value both for Europeana, the data space and the wider sector.
Find out more
For a full picture of the research, read the reports on reuse indicators and Europeana Education - you can also download them below.
To continue the discussions, network with peers and share best practices, join the Europeana Impact Community and our LinkedIn group to share resources that can expand our collective knowledge.