Eric Kansa discusses the promotion of data sharing in archaeology through Open Context, emphasizing the need for accessible research documentation and the value of primary research data. The initiative aims to create tools for the community to share data effectively while facilitating broader research opportunities and enhancing preservation. Challenges include schema mapping and user engagement, with a focus on leveraging existing frameworks like archaeoml for better integration and dissemination of archaeological data.

1. An Open Context for Archaeology Publishing Research Data on the Web Eric Kansa UC Berkeley School of Information Unless otherwise indicated, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/>

2. Today My background Sharing Field Documentation Open Context Unresolved Issues and Next Steps

3. Today My background Sharing Field Documentation Open Context Unresolved Issues and Next Steps

4. Personal Background Anthropology Cultural Archaeology (social) Co-founder of the AAI, a “.org” Currently Executive Director of ISD Program

5. Career Directions Frustrated with the practice of archaeology Data sharing hard / nonexistent Publication = paper Impressionistic, hard to verify claims Opportunity for research Focus on data sharing / communication

6. Independent NGO / nonprofit corporation dedicated to promoting open content for cultural heritage research and education Explore approaches for the community to share (technical, copyright, academic) NOT a repository: Promoting data sharing by creating tools, methods, and exemplars.

7. Today My background Sharing Field Documentation Open Context Unresolved Issues and Next Steps

8. Why Focus on Field Projects and Collections? New Research Opportunities Encourage use and reuse of primary evidence Enable broad scale, analytically rigorous investigations Reduce costs and enhance effectiveness of preservation & access Informal estimates: 15-27% of research ever gets published 1,2 , often in inaccessible formats 1 James H. Ottaway, Jr. “Publish or Be Damned”, a lecture presented for the University of Cincinnati Classics Department, 5/2001. 2 Morag Kersel. “Publishing the Past: Some Shocking Statistics ”, a lecture presented for the American Schools for Oriental Research annual conference. 2005

9. Why Primary Research Content? Bumpus (1898) House Sparrow Data Carey Bumpus published all of his raw data along with his syntheses 10 subsequent groundbreaking papers reanalyzed these data Invaluable dataset used for instruction Key Point: Dataset becomes 10X more valuable with dissemination!

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11. The Conceptual Challenge The content of field documentation (represented in spreadsheets and databases) varies greatly Discipline has 1 foot in humanities, 1 in sciences Archaeological documentation is also rich in media and narrative text

12. Our Approach Explore ways to pool data without overly constraining standards Find / create tools for non-tech expert use and contribution Find / create tools that enable casual browsing / exploratory analyses

13. Our Approach Stay cost-effective! Most archaeological data sharing initiatives are site / project specific. More general solutions needed

14. Global Schemas: ArchaeoML Simple, general schema makes it easier to pool diverse content Not overly determined, support multiple research agendas Hard to implement . But we’re gaining experience UML Diagram of a subset of ArchaeoML

15. Other Web Initiatives Web resources using highly generalized data structures see growing popularity Example: OpenRecord Dojo Foundation (leading open source AJAX) “ Wiki for databases” Data expressed in RDF triples (queried with SPARQL) Likely needs some added meaningful structure to facilitate discipline specific use OpenRecord (www.openrecord.org)

16. Other Web Initiatives Freebase (freebase.com)

17. Other Web Initiatives Freebase (freebase.com) More about this later…

18. Today My background Sharing Field Documentation Open Context Unresolved Issues and Next Steps

19. OCHRE, Open Context OCHRE: Fully supports ArchaeoML global schema using a native XML database and free java client Open Context: Uses a subset of the ArchaeoML schema (via MySQL/PHP) for web-browser access and Internet search engine indexing. Common services, including complex querying and analysis for pooled content

20. General Approach “ Organic” Development Originally planned just to use OCHRE PHP/MySQL: Drives many dynamic content websites, relatively simple standard technology. “Bleeding edge” difficult for our target community. Open to Search Engines: Increasingly important research tools (Harley 2006) Easy integration of Open Source Tools (RSS-feeds, ping-back, etc.) 2 Diane Harley, Sarah Earl-Novell, Jennifer Arter, Shannon Lawrence, and C. Judson King, Jr. “The Influence of Academic Values on Scholarly Publication and Communication Practices”, Research & Occasional Paper Series: CSHE.13.06 <http://cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/docs/ROP.Harley.AcademicValues.13.06.pdf>.

21. Faceted Browse Data from multiple projects browsed, queried (even with Boolean algebra), and results pooled together

22. Records in Open Context

23. Media Record

24. Records in Open Context Contextual relationships: (Spatial containment)

25. Records in Open Context Contextual relationships: (Stratigraphy)

26. Ownership in Open Context Copyright ownership and Creative Commons license information, including metadata Internet-wide standard metadata, links ownership & permissions

27. Ownership in Open Context Citation information with stable URL direct to the item being cited.

28. Ownership in Open Context Zotero (www.zotero.org) uses COinS (a micro-format) metadata to make bibliographic references

29. Complex Querying Data from multiple projects can be queried (with Boolean algebra), and results pooled together

30. Summary Statistics

31. Making Meaningful Links ArchaeoML essentially describes a network of atomic units and their relationships Units and their links typically derived from source data Domuztepe Lot 1939 Bone 231 Pot 232 Pot 233 Pinarbasi Cave Unit A Find ID1-A Find ID2-A Find ID3-A Taxon: Ovis aries Modification: Ground Point Element: metacarpal Material: ceramic Color: Buff-orange Type: Spindle-whorl

32. Making Meaningful Links Current (limited) approach with “tags” Assigned to 1 item or a whole set of items (esp. a query selection set) Express a meaningful link between items Domuztepe Lot 1939 Bone 231 Pot 232 Pot 233 Pinarbasi Cave Unit A Find ID1-A Find ID2-A Find ID3-A Taxon: Ovis aries Modification: Ground Point Element: metacarpal Material: ceramic Color: Buff-orange Type: Spindle-whorl “ Weaving tool”

33. Future Extensions Extend tagging concept for more structure Users can apply variable/value pairs. Assign calendar dates to items Apply more sophisticated ontologies / thesauri (Getty?) Domuztepe Lot 1939 Bone 231 Pot 232 Pot 233 Pinarbasi Cave Unit A Find ID1-A Find ID2-A Find ID3-A Taxon: Ovis aries Modification: Ground Point Element: metacarpal Material: ceramic Color: Buff-orange Type: Spindle-whorl “ Tool Type”: “ Weaving tool”

34. Using Tagged Sets Pingback: Register of a link made to a set tagged as “weaving tools” from a weblog

35. Integration at a General Level Speed and ease of mapping content into ArchaeoML systems Significant cost reduction if most contributors can do it themselves Important for small, individual or project generated research Enables powerful query and analysis across multiple projects But NOT very specific. Example: Composing queries still uses each project’s local recording system (even though several projects can be queried simultaneously and their results pooled)

36. Schema Mapping into ArchaeoML Importer an important part, most people work with Excel, Filemaker, Access… Goal: Individuals can upload their own data, map them into ArchaeoML and submit for review and publishing

37. Data expressed in ArchaeoML Ready for Open Context, OCHRE dissemination Interoperability, longevity advantages Project’s original terminology is maintained Data described with high-level metadata Dublin Core, TimeMap. Can be expressed in RDF, COinS, ArchaeoML (XML), etc. Data schema mappings recorded Import process saves mapping parameters. Internet Archive Accession Outcomes

38. Petra Open City Eric C. Kansa Executive Director, ISD Program, School of Information, UC Berkeley

39. Faceted Browse Petra Great Temple: 128,187 locations / objects 1.1 million descriptions 1626 media objects ( more to come ) 298,500 relationships

40. Penelope 2 Petra Great Temple: 12 individual databases (some very large) ~200 text documents “mined” 1600+ related media files

41. Penelope 1

42. Penelope 1

43. Penelope 2

44. Penelope 3

45. Penelope 4

46. Today My background Sharing Field Documentation Open Context Unresolved Issues and Next Steps

47. Bugs, interface problems Truncated development (I got a new job…) Just beginning user evaluations Schema mapping is major challenge Recent collaborations, hiring should help (stay tuned!) User Experience Image by Jeff Kubina via Flickr (CC-by license) <http://www.flickr.com/photos/kubina/296367267/>

48. Unlocking Open Context

49. Unlocking Open Context Web services Clear need to facilitate “mash-ups” Community / organization specific portals and views of content Example Application: Second Life or Croquet Most current virtual visualizations are one-off projects, have little applicability to other sites / collections Dynamically link online data stores so visualizations can be easier do develop / more meaningful

50. Records in Open Context XML data output, enables: (1) Sharing between web resources (2) Custom presentation (Brown University-specific style templates, etc.)

51. “ Cultural Resource Management” 90% of US archaeology Un-circulated “gray literature” reports Collaboration with the San Diego Archaeological Center 400 datasets, representing 500,000 locations and objects 4-5 “Petras” worth of data Scaling issues becoming paramount! Data Inundation Image by “Doegox” via Flickr (CC-by license) <http://www.flickr.com/photos/doegox/2085419215/>

52. Metaweb Exploring Metaweb ArchaeoML seems to map well to their data store Powerful API Large user community Scale, performance Need to understand concerns!

53. Open Data Protocol Advocated by Science Commons Use of “CC-zero” license Public domain data, reliance on social norms for appropriate use Solves important problems Questions Multiple stakeholder communities Very different, conflicting norms

54. Glocal Backlash Internet, one of the principle ways traditional knowledge and heritage is/will be accessed Local claims and notions of privacy, propriety, spirituality often missing Can have dark-side too! (essentialism, ethno-nationalism, fundamentalisms) Captain Hook award winner for bio-piracy 2006 1 1 Andrew Donoghue, ZDNet UK (March 29, 2006) http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39260264,00.htm

55. Traditional Knowledge Jason Schulz and Ahrash Bissell (co-authors) How CC-licenses can be applied, where they may be inappropriate Some Rights Reserved

56. Public Tensions Prospects to collaborate with amateur communities? Site security “ Fantastic” archaeology &quot;Pothunters&quot; destroying an archaeological site on the Columbia River (Oregon, USA) Image by “gbaku” via Flickr (CC-By-SA license) <http://www.flickr.com/photos/gbaku/1074322614/>

57. Today My background Sharing Field Documentation Open Context Unresolved Issues and Next Steps … .. Now for the thanks!

58. Open Context Developers Eric Kansa (Lead developer, tagging system, interface design) Ahrash Bissell (Penelope design, usability) Nathan Hirth (XML, XSLT, schema mapping) David Schloen (ArchaeoML schema) Sarah W. Kansa (Usability, interface design, documentation) Jeanne Lopiparo (Interface and graphic design, usability) Michael Ashley (Filemaker item-view mockup) Chris Hoffman (Usability, optimization )

59. Special Thanks University of Chicago: OCHRE Project The Electronic Frontier Foundation Doris and Donald Fisher Presidio Archaeology: NPS, Golden Gate National Rec. Area Science Commons Internet Archive (media repository services) “ Friday Afternoon Seminar” “ Friday Afternoon Seminar”

60. Special Thanks University of Chicago: OCHRE Project The Electronic Frontier Foundation Doris and Donald Fisher “ Friday Afternoon Seminar” Presidio Archaeology: NPS, Golden Gate National Rec. Area Science Commons Internet Archive (media repository services)