Developing Application Profiles for Enhancing Data and Workflows in Cultural Heritage Digitisation Processes

As a result of the proliferation of 3D digitisation in the context ofcultural heritage projects, digital assets and digitisation processes - beingconsidered as proper research objects - must prioritise adherence to FAIRprinciples. Existing standards and ontologies, such as CIDOC CRM, play acrucial role in this regard, but they are often over-engineered for the need ofa particular application context, thus making their understanding and adoptiondifficult. Application profiles of a given standard - defined as sets ofontological entities drawn from one or more semantic artefacts for a particularcontext or application - are usually proposed as tools for promotinginteroperability and reuse while being tied entirely to the particularapplication context they refer to. In this paper, we present an adaptation andapplication of an ontology development methodology, i.e. SAMOD, to guide thecreation of robust, semantically sound application profiles of large standardmodels. Using an existing pilot study we have developed in a project dedicatedto leveraging virtual technologies to preserve and valorise cultural heritage,we introduce an application profile named CHAD-AP, that we have developedfollowing our customised version of SAMOD. We reflect on the use of SAMOD andsimilar ontology development methodologies for this purpose, highlighting itsstrengths and current limitations, future developments, and possible adoptionin other similar projects.