Video Active

Video Active presents television material from audiovisual archives across Europe. It provides resources to explore how cultural and historical events have been televised within and across nations and gives a unique perspective on European television history. It enables an interactive discovery of television’s contribution to the construction of a European cultural space, with the help of a large collection of program material. Integrating television research with audio visual material has been a significant challenge, but Video Active offers new and exciting possibilities for researchers, students and the general public to understand the history of television in Europe in novel and dynamic ways. It offers different pathways to exploring European television history, providing key questions and answers combined with clips and programs from the European archives.

Workplan
Video Active work is divided into seven work packages (WP’s) – each of which represents an important part of the work to be performed during the project. Videos of interviews with people behind the different workpackages can be found here…

WP1  Project Management

Interview with Prof. Dr. Sonja de Leeuw

This work package will ensure overall coordination and management of the project and administration and distribution of funding. This requires a control of the quality of contributions, and appropriate timing of activities. Rules for the quality control of all project activities will be defined and adopted. Progress of the work will be monitored against the milestones and the objectives defined in the project programme.
Pictured: Mischa Peters, Prof. Dr. Sonja de Leeuw (Project Coordinator)

WP2 Selection Strategies and Alignment

Interview with Prof. John Ellis

This work package will co-ordinate the selection of the archive television material and supplementary meta-data (such as transmission and production information, stills and documents) to be presented online. Content selection will be based on comparable programme material from the different archive partners, which reflects the cultural and historical similarities and differences of television from across the European Union. As the project is driven by demand, content selection will be conducted in an active dialogue with the archive partners and with the anticipated users, among these the academic members of the European Television History Network.
Pictured: John Ellis, Rob Turnock, Cathy Johnson.

WP3  Content Selection and Access

Interview with Alexander Hecht

This work package deals with the semantic enrichment of the metadata and the publication of the material on the Video Active portal. It will involve working with the contribution application for annotation (metadata) and standardization concerning the already digitised material.
Pictured: Alexander Hecht.

WP4  Semantic Interoperability

Interview with Anna Christaki

Mapping, harmonisation and monitoring of the application of metadata schemas and repositories, terminology sets, name identity approaches and any other important encoding schemes in use with the identified content sets, operational sectors and formats in order to support semantic interoperability among heterogeneous digital archives.
Pictured: Siem Vaessen, Vassilis Tzouvaras

WP5  System Adaptation and Integration

Interview with Jaap Blom

This work package will set up a solid architecture for content delivery by amending the architecture that was developed within the MEDIAPlus project BIRTH. This system will be realised through a web based platform which will be the central point of access to content residing in the libraries of the participating providers or locally stored content, including functionalities to assist the user in collection browsing, query formulation and refinement, and results interpretation and exploitation.
Pictured: Siem Vaessen, Vassilis Tzouvaras

WP6  Evaluation and Assessment

Interview with Andy O’Dwyer

This work package is responsible for gathering user requirements and a staged evaluation of the developing user interface and supporting tools. Working closely with other partners; benchmark testing will be carried out at key points in the design and build stage. Target groups will assess the effectiveness and robustness of the growing system and help deliver a product focused directly around the needs of the users.
Pictured: Andy O’Dwyer, Richard Wright.

WP7  Dissemination and Exploitation

Interview with Johan Oomen

The objective of WP7 is to promote the results (scientific and technological) of Video Active; it aims to encourage the use of the Video Active model in audiovisual and other heritage institutions in the partner countries. Also, the work package aims to recruit new members to join the Video Active user community; archives as well as researchers. The consortium will liaise with leading academics within the ETHN and organize two workshops promoting the portal.
Pictured: Johan Oomen