Evaluating OpenCulturas for use

Yes. OpenCulturas can be operated entirely on your own servers in Germany. There is no dependency on US cloud services or the like. Users also have control over the storage of their personal data. Tracking of behavior on the platform does not take place by default.

Can each of our member organizations use OC individually, or do they all need the same setup?

Both versions are possible. From the start, OpenCulturas supports central installations with multiple sub-organizations. Also already solved: filtered calendars or an overview of all member organizations for placement across all existing individual websites, independent of technology. OpenCulturas can be extended with little effort for decentralized setups with a shared interface – feel free to reach out with your specific ideas!

We're a small team. Isn't OpenCulturas overkill for us?

Not necessarily. OpenCulturas is scalable – even small institutions or projects can start with a manageable setup. Growth isn't excluded. Your advantage: you don't need to deal with importing large amounts of data. If you grow, OpenCulturas grows with you. If you stay a small team, the platform will also look exactly the right size from the outside. Overview pages you don't need can simply be deactivated until you need them.

Not necessarily. OpenCulturas can be set up and operated by a service provider (or by OpenCulturas e. V.). For day-to-day operation you don't need developers – but it helps to have someone on the team who isn't afraid of a CMS.

It depends on your starting situation. For a realistic overview, we're happy to talk with you – with no sales pitch, just concrete assessments. For orientation: High degree of practice-oriented preconfiguration; setup effort for customization: a few hours Initial import from tabular data structures possible (e.g. importing a list of cultural institutions from CSV/Excel) Low training effort

Can we import data from other systems, for example event dates in our region?

Several interfaces for OpenCulturas have already been built, including importers for Open Data Germany, Eventim, and Reservix. The technical foundation exists, but since requirements always differ and contracts with data providers are usually required, we haven't made these interfaces freely available. Get in touch with us if this is relevant for you.

Yes, various interfaces have already been developed. However, there's no "Swiss Army knife" in this area; we need to look at each case individually — which data needs to move between which platforms. An OpenCulturas-savvy service provider can put together a proposal for this, potentially building on interfaces that already exist.