Fifth Framework Programme: Working Paper

Key Action 3:
Multimedia Content and Tools

This is one of a set of pages forming the text of Annex 2 to a European Commission letter inviting early inputs regarding the workplan for the Fifth Framework Programme. For background and overall structure of the text see the letter and associated documents. [Text in square brackets = comments by European Telework Online].

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Rationale

The current turnover of Europe's content industries is estimated by the OECD at around 178 billion ECU. Digital information products (both on-line and off-line) are growing at an exponential pace, for example the number of registered World-Wide Web sites increased from 50 in 1992 to seventy thousand at the end of 1995 and 650,000 in Autumn 1997. As we make the transition to the information society, work is needed to promote European excellence in advanced multimedia content systems, services and technologies. In particular it is critical to improve the functionality and usability of digital content for international business and social applications, promote new education and training systems, and enable cultural and language diversity.

Objectives and RTD priorities

• models,
• methods,
• technologies and
• systems

• creating,
• processing,
• managing,
• networking,
• accessing and
• exploiting

[In Eurolanguage, "audiovisual" includes and focuses on TV, films and video]

• applications-oriented research, focusing on
  • publishing,
  • audiovisual,
  • culture and
  • education and training
  and
• generic research in
  • language and
  • content
  technologies for all applications areas,

• validation,
• take-up,
• concertation and
• standards.

Interactive electronic publishing and digital heritage and cultural content

It would address

• future publishing systems able to
  • handle new combinations of content and to
  • provide users with new levels of interaction and control,

• new forms of content such as
  • virtual objects, in multi-user environments, or
  • immersive, animated content.

• knowledge publishing, in particular for scientific and business content;
• lifestyle publishing, in particular for news, entertainment and information for the citizen; and
• geographic and statistical information, including related socio-economic information,

The work on digital heritage and cultural content would aim to expand the key contribution of

• libraries,
• museums and
• archives

• economic,
• scientific and
• technological

Actions would particularly address new digital processes and cover business and economic models, especially those which stimulate new partnerships through networking and new services for the citizen.

[A useful report, "Information Society Applications of General Interest: Needs and Options for Future Research" was published by DGXIII (TAP Programme) in January 1998. We have been unable to find an online copy please refer to the Commission.]

generating creative content through

• advanced tele-collaborative real-time authoring and design systems and
• skills development (for example for 3-D or virtual reality design and conceptual modelling);
• systems for the generation and re-use of content from different media;
• collaborative creative expression and publishing;

• cost-effective content
  • packaging,
  • advertising and
  • transactions,
• customer profiling and
• individualised design and presentation (in a manner that respects the user's right to privacy);
• exploring the limits between
  • domain-specific and
  • domain-independent
  content;

for digital heritage and cultural content:

integrated access to

• heterogeneous
• distributed

improving the functionalities of large-scale repositories of content by providing

• rich and powerful interactive features and
• advanced management and copyright techniques;

• electronic materials and
• electronic surrogates of fragile physical objects.

Education and training

• education and
• training

• teaching and
• learning

• new approaches to lifelong learning, and on
• innovative ways of integrating multimedia pedagogic material.

RTD priorities
improving the learning process
through more autonomous and more individualised learning - work would include

• local learner support,
• peer learning,
• remote tutoring,
• curriculum/course design systems, and
• accreditation systems;

• the quality of the content itself,
• the embedded pedagogical or didactic approaches, and
• the adaptability to learner needs

• new instructional design tools,
• learner modelling techniques,
• modelling methods for knowledge transfer, as well as
• learning ergonomics,

broadening access to learning resources and services
for all - work would address

• common platforms

• identification and
• retrieval

Human Language technologies

• cost-effective interchanges across language and culture,
• natural interfaces to digital services and
• more intuitive assimilation and use of multimedia content.

• written and
• spoken

their use in key sectors such as

• corporate and commercial publishing,
• education and training,
• cultural heritage,
• global business and electronic commerce,
• public services and utilities, and
• special-needs groups.

RTD priorities
adding multilinguality to systems at all stages of the information cycle, including

• content generation and maintenance in multiple languages,
• localisation of software and content,
• automated translation and interpretation, and
• computer-assisted language training;

• multimodal dialogues,
• understanding of messages and communicative acts,
• unconstrained language input-output and
• keyboard-less operation

enabling active assimilation and use of digital content, where work would apply language-processing models, tools and techniques for

• deep information analysis and
• metadata generation,
• knowledge extraction,
• classification and
• summarisation of the meaning embodied in the content,

Information access, filtering, analysis and handling

RTD priorities

mastering information:
rich descriptive models of digital information content, covering all media types and supporting all human senses, in addition to spatial and temporal aspects;

associated tools to enable users to develop information profiles, possibly based on vague concepts and enabled via personalised agents; radically new cognitive relations between the system and users via individualised metaphors or visualisation techniques;

information management systems:
new organisation and management methods for multimedia information sources - work would explore advanced techniques for

• data warehousing integrating access control mechanisms,
• quality assurance,
• integrity control and
• technical protection of multimedia "fragments", and
• payment systems;