Mapping Digital Cultural Heritage in Jordan

MaDiH (مديح) is informed by research software engineering (RSE) methods practiced in King’s Digital Lab (KDL). As Director of King’s Digital Lab and Deputy Director of eResearch at King’s College London, James Smithies plays a key role in the technical development and training for MaDiH (مديح ) as well as providing access to analysis, training, and technical services. The KDL-based RA, Alessandra Esposito supports the dataset identification process as well as liaising with the Amman-based stakeholders.

MaDiH (مديح) uses well established methods to analyse the strategic, policy, and technical dimensions of Jordan’s digital cultural heritage landscape. The approach is tailored to produce insights (and ultimately digital tools and systems) that can enable Digital Cultural Heritage and research development and will involve a variety of activities including but not limited to quantitative review of stakeholder opinion, policy and literature reviews, technical requirements definition and gap analysis, and participant observation.

The current phase of the MaDiH projects aims to prototype a data catalogue built using CKAN infrastructure to assess the creation of a Jordanian national heritage portal. A Technical White Paper and a Policy White Paper will inform the technical methodology used by MaDiH (مديح) and suggest policies to ensure alignment to international standards for digital humanities.  

Four workshops provide training in Research Software Engineering (RSE) for MaDiH (مديح)’s team members, and opportunities to share the project aims and elicit requirements from professionals working in Jordanian heritage, researchers, and the general public. Engagement with the local software engineering communities is enabled via a hackathon that will test the viability of the metadata collected by MaDiH (مديح), and its suitability as a source for software development for tourism.

Dissemination of the project’s findings within the academic community is achieved via participation of the team members at conferences and production of research papers.