Trans-consortium case study “Windows on data”
Different perspectives on the use case of stained glass
The vision of “One NFDI” requires that highly heterogeneous research data be interoperable across consortium boundaries. A trans-consortium group is addressing this challenge in the case study “Windows on data” of research data relating to stained glass windows from the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (CVMA, https://corpusvitrearum.de). In addition to the art-historical cataloging of stained glass in the CVMA, which is involved in NFDI4Culture, this also concerns object biographies, building research, and aspects of conservation and restoration in NFDI4Objects, mathematical methods and statistical analyses in MaRDI, aspects of architecture and building research in NFDI4Ing, and aspects of materials science in MatWerk. The research data ranges from imaging, measurement, and conservation records to semantic annotations and computer models.
In recent years, this group has examined CVMA data from various interdisciplinary perspectives. The NFDI4Culture, MaRDI, and MatWerk consortia held a workshop entitled “Glass and Data – Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Historical Materials” to examine how cultural heritage, materials science, and mathematics can work together in a single application (https://nfdi4culture.de/news/glass-and-data-multidisciplinary-perspectives-on-historical-materials.html). Since early 2025, the CVMA Freiburg and Task Area 6 in NFDI4Objects have been developing an object biography as a use case for the proof of concept for the NFDI4Objects object ontology. In August of this year, DAPHNE, MaRDI, NFDI4Culture, NFDI4DataScience, NFDI4Ing, and NFDI4Objects took the opportunity to present the interdisciplinary use case at the Conference on Research Data Infrastructures (CoRDI) in Aachen under the name “Windows on data” (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16736318). In September, an autumn school on the topic of “Modern Stained Glass – Metadata – AI” took place in Münster, which dealt with the need for rapid cataloging of stained glass windows that are threatened with destruction. This provided an opportunity to present the possibilities of object biographies in NFDI4Objects (https://zenodo.org/records/17140245), as well as the recommendation of the Minimum Data Set Working Group (https://wiki.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/spaces/DFD/pages/120422678/Minimaldatensatz-Empfehlung+fuer+Museen+und+Sammlungen+MDS+v1.1). In October, “Windows on Data” was discussed as a cross-consortium topic between MaRDI and NFDI4Objects in the DiHMA. Lab “Objects and Methods” (https://www.ada.fu-berlin.de/ada-labs/dihma-lab/DiHMa-MARDI-N4O/index.html). In November, the case study was presented at the Conference on Cultural Heritage and New Technology (CHNT30) in Vienna (https://chnt.at/2025_recordings/).
At a workshop on December 2, 2025, it was decided to continue the case study and bring together the many perspectives. The aim is to strengthen the network between the participants.