Cl PA 2003 XIX 11 ' International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey 
most successful international effort of standardization 
methodology in recent years. 
CRM ‘provides definitions and a formal structure for describing 
the implicit and explicit concepts and relationships used in 
cultural heritage documentation’. In other words the result of 
CIDOC-1COM workgroups has resulted into a comprehensive 
data structure system that provides the basic framework for any 
standardization effort. As a result CIDOC CRM serves as a 
basis for mediation of cultural heritage information and thereby 
provides the semantic 'glue' needed to transform today's 
information sources into a coherent and valuable global 
resource (Doher, 2000). Pilot applications have shown the 
capabilities of such an integration such as museums with large 
data sets (Crofts et a!., 2001). 
This effort has placed itself one step forward by being approved 
by several ISO committees (ISO Committee Draft ISO/CD 
21127), aiming to become a voluntary consensus standard. This 
successful move paves the way for an economically viable 
project that remains of a high standard. 
4. IMPLEMENTATION 
Any decisions where different points of view need to converge 
to one is a vigorous enterprise. Standardization is no exception. 
The beaten path to achieve a starting line for any type of 
standardization would include formal meetings and drafting 
sessions aiming to produce a standard between all stakeholders. 
‘Stakeholders’ in the case of a multidisciplinary scientific area 
as cultural heritage is a considerable number since many 
sciences, techniques, policies and philosophies meet. 
Consequently, any effort has to be carefully planned ahead so 
that best results can be accomplished. 
As stated before, standardization efforts have been carried out 
successfully in the past. However, very few have been directed 
towards an international role. This section will try to bring 
together an action plan from the past experience in cultural 
heritage -through projects like the ones mentioned before- and 
in other scientific areas. 
The aim here is to achieve a globally accepted voluntary 
consensus type standard that is self sustainable. 
The objectives of such an undertaking are as follows: 
- the whole effort to be patronized, supervised and 
organized by an international, widely accepted 
scientific body 
- create a complete and solid data structure for all data 
in cultural heritage 
- undertake conformity assessments 
In order to achieve the above objectives it is necessary to have 
the support and acceptance of the scientific community. For this 
reason, it is important to highlight the importance of 
standardization and make clear the aims and objectives of such 
an effort. 
Having said that, a responsible body has to be chosen to 
organise the project. Several criteria have to be fulfilled: 
1. Wide acceptance: The responsible body must be able 
to cooperate with all stakeholders. For this basic reason it 
has to be widely accepted not only from the academic 
world of cultural heritage but also in general since it will 
have to cooperate with governmental bodies, and private 
investors, for example. 
2. Expertise: Largely due to the sensitivity of the 
researchers to their data, the great expectations from the 
academic world concerning an international 
standardization project and / or the extent of the effort 
itself, standardization has no room for mishandling or 
failure. To achieve this, it is necessary to ensure that the 
responsible body has expertise in this field. This would 
imply completion of past standardization projects and links 
with standardization bodies. 
3. International: As expected, the whole effort will 
demand bringing people, ideas, policies and decisions 
together from all over the world. Consequently, the body 
organizing the standardization project will have to have an 
international character. 
4. Powerful and well linked: At the same time, it will 
have to have the power, ability and links to make its 
decisions heard among all stake-holders. It is very 
important to have strong links with state institutions so that 
the latter can act as distributors and keepers of the 
standards in later stages of the project. 
5. Financially capable: Last but not least, the body 
responsible will have to be able to make an investment into 
such a project. 
Several bodies that can be candidates for this place among 
others are: UNESCO, ISO, CEN, ICOM-CIDOC, CIPA. Also 
the possibility to create a new organisation having as a specific 
purpose the standardization of data in cultural heritage has to be 
carefully considered. 
Having decided upon the body that is going to act as an 
organiser, the stakeholders have to be determined. Attention has 
to be placed into this component of the project since all parts of 
the academic world of cultural heritage have to be determined. 
Experts from all domains have to form workgroups that as a 
whole they are going to act as consultants for the 
standardisation experts from the responsible body. 
Bodies that must not be left out in any such attempt are entities 
in all national, regional and international levels. In more detail, 
government bodies, industry, professional bodies, NGOs, 
museums, libraries, academia, researchers in this domain, 
should have a say in such an effort since a project that aims to 
construct a platform for standardization will effect everyone to 
a certain degree. 
The output of the meetings and discussions should be a series of 
tables/regulations that list the data structure when documenting, 
archiving, presenting and conserving in cultural heritage. They 
should include all aspects in cultural heritage from museum 
exhibits, to excavation findings and archive files. 
The application working package of the project will take 
considerable time. Nevertheless, methods to accelerate the 
process and guarantee compliance can be achieved. Examples 
of such methods are: 
- All state funding to relative projects should demand 
the application of the standards