| Analysis, DB Design and Project Management |
Alexander
G. Bielowski |
| Implementation |
Ben Torben-Nielsen |
| |
Joris Borsboom |
| |
Rembrandt Puijker |
| Graphical Design Consultant |
Miikka Poutiainen |
State of Development
A fully operational version of the E-Culture Net database application
was launched to a beta-user community on 20 March 2003. Prior to
this, partly operational versions were presented at the first E-Culture
Net conference on 12 December 2002 in Maastricht and the review
meeting in Luxembourg, 13 February 2003. On 8 May the installation
of the dedicated E-Culture Net server (running on Debian
Linux) was finished and after initial testing the present version
of the database was initialized on 14 May 2003.
The database application includes today a SQL database composed
of 30 tables, an input interface of
52 PHP scripts,
and 15 output scripts. The output includes
the first protoype of the research matrix in static
and interactive versions
as the first implementation serving objective 2 of the FP6
proposal.
19 May 2003 the database application and a first FP6 Website has
been made public to the members of the consortium.
Future Developments
FP6 Co-operation with AWAKE
The proposal for FP6 includes provisions for a close co-operation
with Fraunhofer Institut Medienkomunikation (IMK) for the adaptation
of their AWAKE knowledge discovery tool.
Open Development of Specific Interface
The architecture of the E-Culture Net Database was deliberately
chosen in order to allow developers within the network to develop
interfaces adjusted to the specific needs of their organisations
or sub-networks. The database was coded in PostGreSQL,
an open source implementation of SQL99 running on a Linux platform.
Detailed descriptions (Entity-relation diagram and tabular database
specification) are distributed to developers on command. A “SELECT”
access to the database is provided to each developer individually
after initial contacts are confirmed.
The use of the widely known SQL99 standard (ISO/IEC 9075) should
allow the integration of E-Culture Net information into websites
and applications designed on different architectures and platforms.
It is, for example, possible to adapt output concerning organisations
for geographic scope or place of residence through the inclusion
of a simple “WHERE”-statement into the SELECT-query.
During the 6th Framework Programme, the translation of the input
interfaces in major European languages is envisioned as part of
the efforts to translate the overall E-Culture Net Website.
