Italian Semester of Presidency of the European Union

EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF MINERVA

Quality in cultural Web sites
Online Cultural Heritage for Research, Education and Cultural Tourism Communities

Parma, 20-21 November 2003, Auditorium Paganini

The conference intends to debate the main themes connected to the aspects of the online accessibility of cultural heritage to facilitate its access to a wider public all over the world, and to promote the development and valorisation of cultural tourism services. This is one of the main issues managed by the Minerva Project.

I session: Accessibility and communication: principles and good practices

The session will focus on quality, accessibility and usability of cultural Web sites for every kind of user. Year 2003 is the International Year for Disabled People: the conference will also tackle the aspects concerned with this cathegory of users.
The relation between cultural institutions and Web, considering different kinds of users and their needs, will be analysed. Several experiences, considered as best practices in the field, will be presented.

II session: Handbook for quality in cultural Web sites

The focus is on quality of digital contents and tools to access them, with a special attention to Web sites. Quality issues will be analysed with respect to the expectations of the users, at research, education, and tourism level.The Guidelines concerning the quality of cultural Web sites, with rules and criteria for its development, indicators and methodologies to measure it, will be presented in this occasion. These set of guides can be very useful both for people implementing Web sites and the users, public institutions and private companies. The results achieved by the Minerva project will be presented: being the results of a transnational cooperation, the guidelines proposed by Minerva will have a European dimension.

III session: IPR, copyright and data protection

A special attention will be paid to legal aspects, copyright in the digital world and data protection. The identification of defined rules to be applied is the first priority to promote online accessibility to cultural heritage. This is a major problem, common to all European countries, whose solution is directly connected to the organisation on online access services.

Round table on prospects for the future

The most important international institutions and organizations, representing archives, libraries and museums, will be called to discuss the main themes of the Conference, in particular future perspectives.