1. WAYS AND CAPACITY IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA
MANAGEMENT IN SERBIA
Milica Tapavički-Ilića
, Marija Šegan-Radonjićb
27th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists: Session 476 - Un-
derstanding and Expanding Capacity in Archaeological Data Management beyond West-
ern Europe
Kiel University - Online Event, September 8th, 2021
aInstitute of Archaeology
bMathematical Institute SANU

2. Subject
Presentation Topic: The analysis of accessibility regarding data about
archaeological heritage and data about archaeological research in the
Republic of Serbia during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords: archaeological data, data, archaeology, data management,
Serbia, capacity.
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3. Content
1. Open data – regulations in Serbia
2. Public access to data about archaeological heritage in electronic
environment
3. Public access to research data in national / thematic /
institutional repositories
4. Conclusion
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4. Open Data - Regulations in Serbia

5. Inspiration
Among others,
• Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 17 November 2003 on the re-use of public sector
information (+ amendment Directive 2013/37/EU)
• G8 Open Data Charter and Technical Annex
• Guidelines and Declarations by the Open Government
Partnership
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6. Timeline
2010 2020
2012
Serbia - Open Government Partnership
2015
Strategy for the development of e-government
2016
Open Data Working Group
2018
Law on Electronic Government
2018
Open Data Portal
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7. Definition
• Open data are data accessible for re-use, together with
metadata, in a machine legible and open form.
• They stand at disposal to everybody to use them in any possible
way, for any purpose, without copyright limitations and
controlling mechanisms.
• The only obligation of the user is to name the data source and
notify possible changes.
• Open data are not personal data, i.e. information that are
related to specific persons, nor data protected with copyright
and ownership rights.
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8. Presentation Focus

9. Presentation Focus
The presentation further focuses on:
1. Data about cultural content, mainly archaeological heritage, and
2. Data collected from research in Social Sciences and Humanities,
mainly in Archaeology.
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10. Public access to data about
cultural content

11. National Portal of Open Data
At the moment, within the Portal of Open Data, the Ministry of Culture and Information
of the Republic of Serbia has shared 13 datasets, three of them being metadata bases
about the immovable cultural heritage in Serbia [6].
.
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12. National Portal of Open Data
The downloaded data set about immovable cultural heritage published on the Portal
of Open Data in the JSON format.
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13. National Portal of Open Data
The cleaned data set about archaeological sites of extraordinary importance
overtaken from the Portal in the CSV format.
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14. National Portal of Open Data
Linking the downloaded data set with the Wikidata open knowledge base and creating
a column with Wikidata Q identification with the help of the OpenRefine tool.
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15. National Browser of Cultural Heritage
At the moment, within the National Browser of Cultural Heritage, 1 archive, 18 libraries,
64 museums, 13 institutes for the protection of cultural heritage and 5 churches and
religious communities have made their descriptive metadata accessible [4].
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16. National Browser of Cultural Heritage
Results of search by using the keyword ’čibska’ in English.
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17. National Browser of Cultural Heritage
Basic descriptive metadata about the digital object ’Čibska šuma’ in the Browser of
Cultural Heritage.
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18. Public access to research data

19. National Portal of Open Science
At the moment, within the national Portal of Open Science, 35 national / thematic /
institutional repositories are included. Among them, there are several initiatives of
open access to primary research data [7].
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20. National Portal of Open Science: National Repository of Doctoral
Theses
For example, the National repository of Doctoral Theses in Serbia allows access to
doctoral theses defended at the universities in Serbia and enables public access to
metadata [3].
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21. Public access to institutional
repositories

22. Repositories of the Institute of Archaeology
The website content includes a homepage with links to news, the history of the
institution, list of projects and the list of publications, documentation, library,
management and the list of employees. At this moment, the website is usable only to
people fluent in Serbian language. [2].
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23. Repositories of the Institute of Archaeology
Homepage of the Archaeological Park Viminacium. [1].
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24. Repositories of the Institute of Archaeology
Е-library of the Viminacium website enables access to a huge number of publications
by the Institute of Archaeology, both to periodicals and monographs, sometimes even
to a certain number of relevant newspaper articles. One can say that in this way,
access to archaeological material is being enabled, under the condition that the user
knows exactly which bibliographical unit he or she is looking for.
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25. Repository of the National Museum in Belgrade
The department that is most attractive to archaeologists who browse archaeological finds is the one entitled “Collections”, leading to
sub-departments about finds from Prehistory, Antiquity, Middle Ages and the New Age. The authors of this paper randomly chose the
sub-department of Antiquity. Here again, there are ten further links, each of them leading to a specific collection. However, these links are
accessible only to the users fluent in Serbian language, while those fluent in English can only access three collections [5].
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26. Repository of the National Museum in Belgrade
There are ten further links, each of them leading to a specific collection, but they are
accessible only in Serbian language. The users fluent in English and wishing to visit
the “Epigraphic and anepigraphic monuments” are asked to enter a username and a
password.
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27. Repository of the National Museum in Belgrade
With further browsing of the Antique Collection, one is able see that it contains texts
written by experts (custodians), as well as a large number of high quality photographs.
However, it is noticeable that some photos were inadequate and wrongly described.
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28. Conclusion

29. Conclusion
• Practically, instead of absolute accessibility, there is rather
selective accessibility.
• Users are offered only a limited insight into the archaeological
material.
• Most of the data is accessible only to users fluent in Serbian
language.
• In most cases, there is no possibility to download data, nor is
there information about the possibilities of them being re-used.
• Open access and absolute accessibility are defined by law, but
not applied in reality and this only needs to be arranged.
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30. THANK YOU!
The Presentation Template is retrieved from:
github.com/matze/mtheme
The Presentation Template is protected by Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
4.0 International License.
cba
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31. References i
Homepage of the Archaeological Park Viminacium.
http://viminacium.org.rs/ (accessed September 6, 2021).
Homepage of the Institute of Archaeology.
http://www.ai.ac.rs/ (accessed September 6, 2021).
NaRDuS – National Repository of Doctoral Theses in Serbia.
https://nardus.mpn.gov.rs/ (accessed September 6, 2021).
National Browser of Cultural Heritage.
https://kultura.rs/ (accessed September 6, 2021).
National Museum in Belgrade.
http://www.narodnimuzej.rs (accessed September 6, 2021).
National Portal of Open Data.
https://data.gov.rs (accessed September 6, 2021).
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32. References ii
National Portal of Open Science.
https://www.open.ac.rs/ (accessed September 6, 2021).
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