[open-archaeology] Ethics, archaeology and open data

Tue May 11 17:04:37 UTC 2010

Hi All,

A couple of points:
(1) Lots of researchers are fine doing the right thing (being "open"), 
but don't bother because there's little positive or negative incentive 
around data sharing. Feeding into professional reward systems (in 
commercial or academic) settings is a big deal. I think the IP issues 
are a secondary consideration for most practicing archaeologists than 
the practical concerns and near-term incentives.

(2) We have to be careful about being overly ideological with our 
notions of "open". In the US, we have an obvious and sad (big 
understatement) colonial history. Sometimes, there will be disagreements 
between scientific values and ethics for openness and privacy and 
cultural property claims of some indigenous peoples. Sorting all this 
out will necessarily be messy and imperfect, because different cultural 
traditions have different rules for intellectual property and propriety. 
That's not to say that our notions about the public domain or the 
commons are bad, it's just that we have to be careful about context.

Anyway, these issues will often add transaction costs and reduce 
interoperability, but in certain situations, maximizing interoperability 
should be regarded as less important than the recognition of historical 
and cultural circumstances and claims. (Related paper, a bit old but 
still relevant: 
http://www.alexandriaarchive.org/IJCP%20Article%20FINAL_share.pdf)

Best!
-Eric

Jo Kaye wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> Very interesting discussion! With my commercial archaeology hat on I 
> feel the need to add the money aspect to all of this- it's not all 
> ethics or lethargy that stops us getting data out there, but cold hard 
> cash. Developers are not interested (in the main) in paying for any 
> more than they need to. Furthermore, for information, though I'm not 
> naming names or sites- we (Oxford Archaeology) do have specific cases 
> of issues with Night Hawks, including having to hire 24 hour security 
> to protect sites.
>
> I'd love to be involved in any meet-up, both personally and as a 
> representative of the commercial archaeology sector. Anything that can 
> be done to make the situation better as far as I'm concerned.
>
> All the best
>
> Jo
>
>
> ===================================
> Jo Kaye (nee Cook)
> Email: jo.k.cook at googlemail.com <mailto:jo.k.cook at googlemail.com>
> Blog: www.archaeogeek.com/blog <http://www.archaeogeek.com/blog>
> Photos: www.flickr.com/photos/barryandjo 
> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/barryandjo>
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Eric C. Kansa, PhD.
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Information and Service Design Program
Adjunct Professor
UC Berkeley, School of Information
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