[open-archaeology] National standards for archeological data (DRAFT)

[Stefano Costa]

Dear friends and colleagues,
now that a dedicated mailing list was created for the Working Group on
Open Data in Archaeology, I'd like to start discussing the tasks that I
think we should undertake in the following months. I and Jonathan Gray
of the OKF have already agreed that there are some actions that are
quite easy and should be completed as soon as possible, namely:

      * write a post on OKFN blog
              * Explaining background
              * Why open data in archaeology?
              * Introducing WG
              * Mentioning mailing list
      * writing a document that explores arguments in favour of open
        data in archeology - to use as a manifesto and easy to refer to
        when introducing our initiative
      * for those datasets that are already listed on CKAN but are
        missing a clear license statement, make a public enquiry using
        the Is It Open? service <http://www.isitopendata.org/> (a side
        project of CKAN)

On the long term, the two main parallel tasks I see are going to be:
      * the "hunt" for open data, either by means of public enquiries
        (see above) or targeted talks with colleagues and supervisors
      * the collection of knowledge about national (and possibly
        regional) standards for archaeological data, both from a
        technical point of view (formats, thesauri, repositories and
        catalogues, unique IDs) and from a legal/bureaucratic point of
        view (who owns rights, who doesn't - and how much current
        restrictions derive from law, opposite to habits)

Please comment freely on this brief plan, and remember that being a
coordinator makes me no dictator - you are all equally welcome and
encouraged to take part in everything that is done here :-)

Best regards,
Stefano


-- 
Stefano Costa

Coordinator, Working Group on Open Data in Archaeology
http://wiki.okfn.org/wg/archaeology
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org