Locale

Inspiration

Navigating complex information spaces remains a challenge despite the significant improvements in online and mobile search and retrieval processes. The problem becomes acute when viewed from the perspective of social networking and location-based services as the data is often geo-tagged or contains overviews or miscellaneous references about particular places.  The Locale project aims to develop a collaborative mobile and web-based platform with a focus on location-based storytelling for authoring and sharing multi-media historical heritage content about the period of 1945-1960 in Luxembourg and the surrounding Greater Region: from the end of WWII to the dawn of Europe, in the context of their respective 70th (2015) and 60th (2017: European Economic Community) anniversaries.

Innovation

The LOCALE project will foster the sharing of personal historical accounts that might not be included in standard historical literature. The platform will offer advanced functionalities for exploring multidimensional data using various human analysis and data mining strategies, based on metadata, tags, attributes entered by the user, and browsing history (e.g. connections between a place and queries about a given historical fact). Locale makes use of Collaborative Visualization, which allow different users to share views of the same content with different focuses, in order to offer an intuitive and easy way of sharing content.

Impact

Target users include those who have direct or indirect memories of the period, as well as those with a historical interest in or knowledge of the period. Interaction between users of the platform will enable following discussions based on the data contributed as well as make it possible to verify, complete and put in perspective pieces of historical information. Locale will notably contribute to social and digital inclusion, by allowing elderly people to share their stories with younger members of the population.