DAEDALUS - Delivery of Mediterranean Destination Links in Unified Environment - 311

Eumedis Project number: 311

EC Project code: 311

Contract "signature" date: 2002-01-07

Planned start date: 2002-03-01

Planned duration: 51 months

Planned end date: 2006-06-01

Actual start date: 2002-03-01

Total Budget: 2.510.367,91 ?

EC Contribution: 

2.008.294,33 €

Sector: Tourism and cultural heritage

Background: 

An effective use of resources requires combining the complementary experience and knowledge of cultural heritage experts with that of practitioners of social, economic, and infrastructure development. In aggregate, these resources can serve nations and local communities as they formulate, fund, implement, and assess cultural heritage conservation. The focus on communities is seen as a leverage factor for the modernisation of the cultural heritage field empowering the professionals with new services, based on information society technologies that will project them at the centre of the networked economy from very remote and distant locations. Improved information management and dissemination are needed urgently and will benefit every aspect of cultural heritage conservation and management.
An obvious first step is to organise existing information on cultural heritage using the sophisticated tools and concepts at hand. Every aspect of heritage conservation and management would benefit from this accomplishment. The requirements of cultural heritage conservation far exceed funds available. In some cases culture has been considered optional or of low priority by many governments, non governmental organisations and the private sector, and thus has suffered neglect. In times of retrenchment or fiscal austerity, governments often cut expenditures for culture first; even in periods of economic growth, culture may not prosper. Fundraising in the institutionally-weak cultural sector is hampered by fragmentation and poor communication between organisations, limited information sharing, an inability to express the benefits of their efforts in economic and social terms, and a lack of proficiency in advocacy.
The Daedalus project identifies these as priority areas, and as progress occurs, the capacity for attracting funds should increase. Incorporating a social and economic development perspective into the work programs of the Daedalus network members will require, and open up new sources of support for the preparation and implementation of specific cultural heritage conservation projects on a local lever by the communities of interest. Increased participation by local communities in identifying conservation priorities, linking these priorities to broader development needs, and demonstrating the social and economic benefits of such projects should lead to increased public, foundation, and private sector financing of cultural heritage conservation.

Objectives: 

Overall Objectives
• The creation of a Mediterranean cultural tourism framework.

Specific Objectives
• To pilot and prototype a single cultural tourism Mediterranean one stop shop portal.
• Creation and set up national Mediterranean service centres, running local portals, in Cyprus, Egypt, France, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Tunisia, Turkey. Create Mediterranean tourism and cultural heritage communities of interest.

Description: 

The DAEDALUS project will establish a federated network of Tourism and Cultural related info-services providers, combining both national-level and regional sites. This project will be in particular concerned with the enhancement of the Tourism sector, strongly linked to the Cultural Heritage, around the Mediterranean basin and therefore will carry out activities defined as infrastructure/technology and network oriented, partner-economic oriented, business/innovation and modernisation oriented, awareness/training oriented and finally re-organisation of the tourism and cultural heritage content of existing web sites.
The DAEDALUS network will be the nervous system of a Mediterranean strategy to enhance and modernise the tourism and cultural heritage sectors. In order to coherently meet the proposed goal the project objectives will be divided in three main layers that altogether will contribute to the creation of the network.

Therefore the project will:

1. Design and implement a single one stop shop entry point, the DAEDALUS portal, for the linkage with the global tourism and cultural heritage community.

2. Set up national Mediterranean service centres, in Cyprus, Egypt, France, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Tunisia, Turkey, devoted to support the sector of tourism and cultural heritage. They will act as interconnected info-service providers through the DAEDALUS portal and will host the national web portal-sites around the Mediterranean basin organised in a co-ordinated manner.

3. Create Mediterranean tourism and cultural heritage communities of interest around the Mediterranean service centres which will be through training and innovation activities the trigger for the multiplier effect for the Mediterranean information society modernisation.

The focus of DAEDALUS will be placed on both ends of information delivery channels, i.e., information production (national portals) and information consumption (the mass market). This set of objectives embeds in their development a set of sub-objectives.

The Daedalus network for Tourism & cultural heritage project will develop and validate new ways of workflow in the business between suppliers, vendors and customers in the tourist value chain. Therefore, an open network for electronic commerce in tourist business will be developed offering new access to and distribution of information for the partners of the value chain. The network will integrate and facilitate interoperability of existing technologies - especially the Internet and WWW protocols- to give also new impulses for innovating the workflow of other companies and branches of business characterized by supply chain management such as forwarding business, event tourism, mail order houses, etc.

The Daedalus network will allow all kinds of companies in the Mediterranean tourist business to offer and request services, enabling especially smaller and medium sized organizations to participate in the business as equal partners. Additionally, the traveller will get the opportunity to communicate directly to destination agencies and suppliers, such as car rentals and hotels while being integrated in a network of portals. At the end the network will be a set of portals. Thus, Daedalus will offer a completely integrated solution supporting all kinds of communication during the Mediterranean tourist business chain. Entire business processes, e.g. information of the tourist, booking the journey, service at the destination and even all payments will be carried out via the Daedalus network.

The Daedalus network is based on a series of federated information hubs, i.e., national country portals, and the central Daedalus portal with the aim to service both the local – in the networked countries - communities of interest and the mass market. The central portal will be designed in a way to respect the following minimum set of features and criteria: Web Crawling, Publish/Subscribe Operations, Notification, Thematic categories, Customised views, Workflow, Search engines, Security. In the Daedalus portal implementation the following requirements will be respected: Ease of implementation and ease of use, Universal Information Access, Dynamic resources allocation, Extensibility, Collaborative capabilities, Customisation features, Pro-activeness, Security, Scalability, Interoperability, Manageability. The respect of these criteria will permit to create an open architecture and to leave to the national service centres an open choice of technical tools on how to reorganize and coherently build the national portals.

In terms of content the Daedalus network will implement the same set of taxonomies. A specific XML based solution will be adopted for the purposes of the network. As far as the communication framework is concerned the network will implement a web service based architecture. Content scenario of the Daedalus network: the actual structure and layout of the Daedalus Network information/content is created according to content specifications delivered by the sub-project Content and the web specifications for the Daedalus portal.

Daedalus portal - graphical interface in terms of navigation is created. Multimedia storyboard -including further guidelines for user/interface design and exact movements and behaviours of the multimedia elements (like animated images), will allow for the optimal design of all elements of the Daedalus portal. Design work: this sub-task encompasses everything about the artistic ‘look and feel’, the design of the graphical interface (like buttons, menus etc.) and all the forecasted screens. The Daedalus network is based on a series of federated information hubs, i.e., national country portals, and the central Daedalus portal with the aim to service both the local – in the networked countries - communities of interest and the mass market. The central portal will be designed in a way to respect the following minimum set of features and criteria: Web Crawling, Publish/Subscribe Operations, Notification, Thematic categories, Customised views, Workflow, Search engines, Security. In the Daedalus portal implementation the following requirements will be respected: Ease of implementation and ease of use, Universal Information Access, Dynamic resources allocation, Extensibility, Collaborative capabilities, Customisation features, Pro-activeness, Security, Scalability, Interoperability, Manageability. The respect of these criteria will permit to create an open architecture and to leave to the national service centres an open choice of technical tools on how to reorganize and coherently build the national portals.

Results: 

1. Effective activity of the DAEDALUS portal on Mediterranean cultural tourism.

2. Effective activity of the 8 cultural tourism service centres in Cyprus, Egypt, France, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Tunisia, and Turkey.

3. Development of a local multiplier effect through the service centres. Modernisation of the Mediterranean information society through the multiplier effect.

Project Management: 

The project is made up of 4 inter-related management groups, designed to facilitate the achievement of the objectives, deliverables and milestones; the Project Management Board (PMB), the Local actions and services Workgroup, the Network infrastructure and content Workgroup, the Liaison & Sustainability Workgroup, these working groups have been designed in order to ease the integration with other EUMEDIS projects on Tourism and Cultural Heritage. The organisational structure consists of 3 levels:
• The decision making level;
• The project administration level,
• The implementation level and integration with other EUMEDIS projects.

The Decision making level: The management decision making body within the project is the Project Management Board (PMB). Recorded decisions of the PMB are contractually binding upon all project partners. The PMB is chaired by P1 as Coordinator of the whole project and is serviced by the PM. The PMB undertakes executive decisions: Business and exploitation plans; IPRs, future perspectives and consultations with the CE; project strategy; policy issues; reports approval; the annual review. The PMB is composed of one nominated management representative from each of the Daedalus partners.

The Administration level: The Project Coordinator (PC) has the overall responsibility of the project on behalf of the Daedalus consortium for the performance of the specific work carried out, budgetary and technical. The role of the PC is crucial in the effective coordination of the service and the overall monitoring of the strategic contract evolution. The PC is responsible for the management and implementation of WP0 regarding the coordination activities with other EUMEDIS projects. The Project Manager (PM) coordinates by ensuring the delivery and dissemination of the internal project reports. The PM services the PMB, manages daily the project and administrative activities, assists the partners, and works with the sub-projects leaders and linking with the EC. The PM is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the project, and he/she has a very clear view of the project objectives and scope, as well as of the means to achieve those objectives. He/She has the responsibility of the technical and day-to-day running and coordination of Daedalus service team. The Quality Manager (QM) has the ability to organise, initiate, and drive quality systems and improvement efforts and facilitate organisational learning of quality techniques and practices. The QM monitors the quality of deliverables and performance of services to support business goals. The QM reports to the PM. Within the Network Group and the Service Centres Group, however, assumes an independent role, allowing the implementation of reviews and audits.
The Implementation level and integration with other EUMEDIS Projects
The Network infrastructure and content Workgroup (NW) is led by P3 and serviced by the PM for the consortium and is composed of 3 members per partner and assistant partner. The NW manages the operations by scheduling the project’s activities, disseminating the project results to the outside world; managing a technical coordination role; approving the bimonthly management and the reports, monitoring the achievement of deliverables; being responsible for the achievement of the technical infrastructure relating objectives, reviewing task plans, taking any technical decisions; designing procedures, tools and methodologies for assuring the overall project quality, coordinating the three functional workgroups through regular discussions in the NW.

The Liaison and Sustainability Workgroup (LSW) is led by P1 with all principal partners and its aims is to establish and maintain active communication channels between the Project and European and international bodies in the field of Tourism and Cultural Heritage.

The Services and local actions Workgroup (SLW) is led by P12 including one representative of the established service centres and is responsible for the business processes analysis, local oriented market surveys.
Each partner has its own right for its own development, and whenever a partner has in mind to use the results belonging to another partner he has to pay well defined royalties. The established Daedalus network will be owned by all the principal partners and they will respond in terms of any decision to the PMB.

Risk management
The partners have agreed to handle any litigation on lack of deliveries or funding problems on decisions taken at the majority in a joint session with the PMB. Other risks are the decisions taken for the dissemination and exploitation of the results, in that case the PMB will decide on any issues arisen and will ask the advice of the PM. In case of a continuous non-performance of a partner the PM will seek a face-to-face meeting with the responsible of the concerned partner, to enquire the reasons and find solutions. If no solution is found or the promised improvement does not happen the PMB will discuss the issue. If the concerned partner has not improved its performance until the next PMB meeting the partner will be asked to leave the consortium. The PMB will also discuss and decide with a 75% majority on the necessary steps to take.

Web site: http://laplace.intrasoft-intl.com/daedalus/source

Project Coordinator: Anna, Della Ventura (more details ...)

Leading partner

Italy

ITC-Unita Staccata di Milano [http://www.cnr.it/sitocnr/home.html]

Participating Partners