RO-Crate Resources

This page provides links to sources of RO-Crates (Research Object Crates) that are informing the development of these tools.

Collections

University of Melbourne - OHRM Upload Project

Link: https://figshare.unimelb.edu.au/projects/OHRM_Upload_Project/230466

The Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM) Upload Project contains datasets from the University of Melbourne's former eScholarship Research Centre, transformed into RO-Crate format as part of the Describo Collections Integration Project (funded by the ARDC). This project rescues and preserves valuable heritage datasets by converting OHRM databases into modern RO-Crate packages, making them accessible for future researchers. Each dataset includes comprehensive metadata in ro-crate-metadata.json, digital content in an objects folder (where applicable), and original Microsoft Access/PostgreSQL datafiles in an ohrm folder.

Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA)

Link: https://data.ldaca.edu.au/search

The Language Data Commons of Australia provides access to thousands of collections, objects, files and notebooks of nationally significant language data. The portal contains diverse collections including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, regional languages of the Pacific, Australian English and migrant languages, sign languages of Australia and its region. The entire LDaCA data portal is built on RO-Crates, using them as the storage method for the repository with controlled access.

PARADISEC (Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures)

Link: https://catalog.paradisec.org.au/ Modern PARADISEC demonstrator: http://mod.paradisec.org.au/

A major cultural heritage archive holding over 150 TB of audio/video recordings representing 1,370+ languages, mainly from the Pacific region. Over 700 collections of performance, narrative, singing, and other oral tradition. PARADISEC has migrated its metadata to RO-Crate, with each item having a ro-crate-metadata.json stored alongside the materials in OCFL. The Modern PARADISEC demonstrator contains 16,000+ items across 500+ collections. Media files may require access permissions depending on the collection.

Criminal Characters (UTS / Arkisto)

Link: https://github.com/UTS-eResearch/criminal-characters Case study: https://arkisto-platform.github.io/case-studies/uts-cultural/

A research project led by Dr Alana Piper investigating criminal careers and life histories of Australian offenders from the end of the convict period through to WWII. Data was crowdsource-transcribed via Zooniverse, then converted to RO-Crate linked data format. The public GitHub repository contains the conversion scripts.

Nyingarn (Indigenous Language Manuscripts)

Link: https://nyingarn.net/

An ARC-funded project providing digital access to early sources of Australia's Indigenous languages. Manuscript images are transcribed (via OCR and crowdsourcing) and made searchable. Partners include ANU, UQ, La Trobe, USyd, UniMelb, UAdelaide, and AIATSIS. Nyingarn uses RO-Crate as its data description format, with Describo embedded as the metadata editor. Access is governed by Indigenous community protocols.

Discovery Portals

Link: https://marketplace.sshopencloud.eu/

A European discovery portal pooling tools, services, training materials, datasets, publications, and workflows for Social Sciences and Humanities research. Maintained by DARIAH, CLARIN, and CESSDA. Acts as a discovery layer — links out to external repositories where data can be downloaded.

RO-Crate Community

Link: https://www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/use_cases

The official RO-Crate community site lists use cases, examples, and profiles across domains including several HASS projects.

Notes

More resources will be added over time