[open-archaeology] starting

Fri Jan 29 02:14:26 UTC 2010

following Rufus, I'm especially interested in the use of open data, 
because use can be an important motivation for its creation. Misuse 
would be an issue many worry about to, though I think data would be 
misused open or not. I'm just voicing a concern many have told me for 
not wanting to be more open.

Alternately, some uses only require access to data, and licensing is 
less immediately relevant. I'm thinking here about using datasets as 
reference / comparative material. This seems to be a common use. 
Regional analysis could be advanced with shared legally/technically open 
data, but a critical issue here is obtaining enough relevant open data 
to make analysis across different datasets meaningful. This issue is 
probably of more strategic importance for advocates of open data in 
archaeology.

As far as discussion, here's some simple guidelines we use. The 
copyright / licensing discussion is relevant here:

http://opencontext.org/about/publishing

Best!
-Eric

Rufus Pollock wrote:
> On 21 January 2010 12:55, Stefano Costa <stefano.costa at okfn.org> wrote:
>   
>> 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
>>     
>
> This sounds an excellent starting point, and I think point 2 is
> especially important.
>
>   
>>      * 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
>>     
>
> I think this can naturally come out of a shorter (para or 2)
> discussion in the blog post.
>
>   
>>      * 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)
>>     
>
> This all sounds good. I think it would also be worth thinking about
> what one would do with the open data once one has it -- i think this
> relates to the why open data question above. Perhaps it would be worth
> thinking of one exemplar project you could do that would use the open
> data you find during the "hunt".
>
> Regards,
>
> Rufus Pollock
>   

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Adjunct Professor
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