[open-archaeology] [Antiquist] Re: Heritage Method Store Proposal

[Anthony Beck]

This has come from Edmund Lee at EH (he's having problem logging in with his
google account). Edmund. Thanks and I've cc'd to open archaeology. I'll get
back to posts when I can. I need to keep my head down as I;ve deadlines to
meet and a site visit tomorrow.

Ant

Hi Anthony,

I picked up your posting to antiquist, and wanted to express support and
willingness to participate as this develops. I tried answering on list but
there seems to be a problem  with my Google account.. What I intended to
say  was as follows - please feel free to pass it on to Antiquist iof that
would help....

>

Many thanks to Anthony for posting details of this proposal which is very
timely. I was particularly taken by Anthony's comment

> >>However, the point is to build a community around the content
> >> that are prepared to discuss and improve methodologies (hence – an
indexing
> >> service of available methods is not adequate). In the short term I feel
that
> >> we should use tools that are accessible to a large audience rather than
> >> exclusive to a technologically sophisticated audience.

The community - in the jargon of knowledge management the 'community of
practice' - needs to be the focus, not the technology.

I've been exploring this issue for English Heritage, and have established a
pilot 'Community of Practice' using the free platform provided by the Local
Government Improvement and Development Agency at
http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/welcome.do . This platform has been
deliberately designed to combine in one place the useful functions of
knowledge and practice sharing:
- a forum for discussion,
- wiki pages,
- document and file sharing,
- blog post sharing,
- newsfeeds,
- events calendar,
- membership profiles and networking,
- social tagging of content and tag clouds,
- alerts by email
- search across multiple communities and sub-groups etc.
The platform is aimed at anyone working in public service organisations (not
just local government) and is already home to several hundred communities
covering all sorts of public service topics. This may put off those from a
university background, but do give it a go - one of the challenges we face
as a discipline is bringing together the talents of .ac, .org. .co and .gov
practitioners. If any antiquistas woud like to explore this as an example of
what is possible for the proposed Heritage Methods Store, you will need to
register with the CoP platform first and then find and join my pilot
community (it's called simply 'Historic Environment'). So far we are using
it as a supplement to face-to-face training courses run as part of the
Historic Environment Local Management (HELM) programme, but it is capable of
far far more, so please feel free to experiment.

Looking further ahead, the people who developed the Communities platform are
now working on its successor, currently called the Knowledge Hub. This will
aim to integrate the 'know how' (i.e. the guidance and discussion on good
practice) with the recorded information (i.e. mash-ups from public datasets)
as a means to improve public services. Ambitious, and I'm interested to see
how that works out. If you are interested, register with the Communities
platform, and there is a community devoted to the Knowlwdge Hub.


Best wishes

Ed

Standards and Guidelines manager
English Heritage



On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Leif Isaksen <leifuss at googlemail.com>wrote:

> Sorry - just noticed that a wiki format is only one option amongst
> several. Sounds like a good idea to me though :-)
>
> L.
>
> On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 10:09 AM, Leif Isaksen <leifuss at googlemail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi all
> >
> > interesting thread! I thought I'd thrown in a couple of quick thoughts
> > and leave it at that seeing as I don't know anything about geophysics
> > :-)
> >
> > - I think Ben's thoughts on a wiki article design are great. It might
> > well be worth checking out the work on Pattern Langauges:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language. If you set up a
> > template people can fill in different elements as and when they have
> > time.
> >
> > - As a separate issue, a few of us have been toying with the idea of
> > setting up a Stack Exchange site for Technology in the Humanities
> > (http://area51.stackexchange.com/). This would have to be quite a
> > large affair in order to work (i.e. we'd need to rope in antiquisters,
> > digital classicists, HASTACers, and so on in order to reach a
> > functioning scale) but it's Q&A format would nicely complement both
> > the mailing lists (which are good for announcements and making
> > personal contacts) on the one hand and more substantial knowledge
> > articles such as the proposed methods wiki on the other. In any case,
> > if anyone is interested in the initial phase of getting it off the
> > ground please get in touch offlist.
> >
> > Best
> >
> > L.
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 9:17 AM, Anthony Beck <ant.beck at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> Dear All,
> >>
> >> Quick update:
> >>
> >> I have now submitted this as a project proposal to OKFN. I have
> requested
> >> hosting, technical and developer resource (there may be some legal
> elements
> >> as well).
> >>
> >> I also exchange e-mails with Mike Heyworth at the Council for British
> >> Archaeology last night. Mike/CBA are happy to commit some resources to
> the
> >> initiative. Given the community and outreach focus of CBA and the high
> >> esteem in which it is held it would seem sensible if we undertake this
> >> jointly between OKFN and CBA. I've included a direct link to Stuart
> Jeffrey
> >> at the ADS.
> >>
> >> Best
> >>
> >> Ant
> >>
> >> On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 4:30 PM, Anthony Beck <ant.beck at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Oops. Didn't realise my work account wasn't registered
> >>> Best
> >>> Ant
> >>>
> >>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >>> From: Anthony Beck <A.R.Beck at leeds.ac.uk>
> >>> Date: Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 4:06 PM
> >>> Subject: Heritage Method Store Proposal
> >>> To: "open-archaeology at lists.okfn.org" <open-archaeology at lists.okfn.org
> >,
> >>> "Michael Doneus (michael.doneus at univie.ac.at)"
> >>> <michael.doneus at univie.ac.at>, "rachel.opitz at googlemail.com"
> >>> <rachel.opitz at googlemail.com>, "wlodekra at amu.edu.pl" <
> wlodekra at amu.edu.pl>,
> >>> "nina.heiska at tkk.fi" <nina.heiska at tkk.fi>, "gianluca.cantoro at gmail.com
> "
> >>> <gianluca.cantoro at gmail.com>, "dart-investigators at comp.leeds.ac.uk"
> >>> <dart-investigators at comp.leeds.ac.uk>, "Dr. Axel Posluschny"
> >>> <posluschny at rgk.dainst.de>, Cameron Neylon <cameron.neylon at stfc.ac.uk
> >,
> >>> "jo.walsh at ed.ac.uk" <jo.walsh at ed.ac.uk>, Dave Cowley
> >>> <Dave.Cowley at rcahms.gov.uk>, "j.p.mills at newcastle.ac.uk"
> >>> <j.p.mills at newcastle.ac.uk>, "remondino at fbk.eu" <remondino at fbk.eu>,
> Keith
> >>> Challis <k.challis at bham.ac.uk>, "ahzcb at granby.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk"
> >>> <ahzcb at granby.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk>, "anthony at discoveryprogramme.ie"
> >>> <anthony at discoveryprogramme.ie>, "robert at discoveryprogramme.ie"
> >>> <robert at discoveryprogramme.ie>, "mikeheyworth at britarch.ac.uk"
> >>> <mikeheyworth at britarch.ac.uk>, "antiquist at googlegroups.com"
> >>> <antiquist at googlegroups.com>
> >>> Cc: "ant.beck at gmail.com" <ant.beck at gmail.com>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Apologies for cross posting:
> >>>
> >>> Dear All,
> >>>
> >>> At the Aerial Archaeology Research Group conference I suggested we
> produce
> >>> a methodology store. The aim of such a resource is to stop the
> community
> >>> “re-inventing the wheel” by sharing methodologies and algorithms, to
> provide
> >>> a place where methodology can be discussed and developed, to provide an
> >>> audit trail for developments and an ability to “fork” methodologies in
> light
> >>> of different localities, technologies, to be able to provide links
> between
> >>> methodologies developed at different scales or for different
> environments
> >>> etc. I discussed this with colleagues and collaborators at the Open
> >>> Knowledge Foundation (OKF: particularly the Open Archaeology group –
> which I
> >>> recommend you join), the Remote Sensing and Photogrametry Society
> (RSPSoC),
> >>> the Council for British Archaeology and colleagues with a professional
> >>> interest in these topics (Jo Walsh at Edina and Cameron Neylon at the
> >>> Science and Technology Facilities Council). In addition members of the
> EU
> >>> funded ArchaeoLandscapes project
> >>> (http://www.archaeolandscapes.eu<http://www.archaeolandscapes.eu/>),
> which
> >>> had a meeting directly after AARG, were also supportive. The support
> for
> >>> this initiative has been overwhelming. The above constitutes the what
> and
> >>> why for a heritage methodology store: the issue seems to be not a
> matter of
> >>> “if” we do this but of where, how and who.
> >>>
> >>> For the Where I would suggest we do this under the umbrella of the Open
> >>> Knowledge Foundation (OKFN: http://okfn.org/). This means that it’s
> clear
> >>> that the resource is about openness and applies to all methodologies
> rather
> >>> than just the specifics about a single interest group. Jonathan Gray is
> the
> >>> community co-ordinator for OKFN. Jonathan: What do you think? Is this
> >>> possible/desirable? What are the cost/resource implications. Comments
> from
> >>> anyone else?
> >>>
> >>> The How is likely to be the most difficult questions. We can use a
> range
> >>> of different technologies. Stefano Costa has suggested a wiki, which is
> a
> >>> simple and easy tool. At the other end of the spectrum we could use
> >>> something like MyExperiment or GitHub (software management).
> MyExperiment
> >>> allows the production of digital workflows that can transform data with
> >>> algorithms (something that would be very useful for those of us doing
> >>> numerical analyses – like the heritage remote sensing specialists).
> However,
> >>> this may provide too much clutter for other users. Between these two
> tools
> >>> are a spectrum of other technologies that may be useful (Stack
> Overflow,
> >>> Mahara, etc.). However, the point is to build a community around the
> content
> >>> that are prepared to discuss and improve methodologies (hence – an
> indexing
> >>> service of available methods is not adequate). In the short term I feel
> that
> >>> we should use tools that are accessible to a large audience rather than
> >>> exclusive to a technologically sophisticated audience. This stops us
> being
> >>> too prescriptive and allows us to extend tools as the community
> requires
> >>> them. I’m sure a number of you have much more experience than I do in
> this
> >>> area: please feel free to comment on this?
> >>>
> >>> For the who, I’m happy to run with this in conjunction with the DART
> PhD
> >>> students. I’ll put up a shout if things become difficult.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> For completeness I have also included members of Antiquist in this
> >>> discussion. Please feel free to forward this e-mail to your own
> heritage
> >>> special interest groups. However, it would be good if conversations
> were
> >>> threaded to the Open Archaeology list at
> >>> open-archaeology at lists.okfn.org<mailto:open-archaeology at lists.okfn.org
> >.
> >>>
> >>> Best wishes and many thanks for all your help and support
> >>>
> >>> Ant
> >>> ---------------------------------------
> >>> Anthony Beck
> >>> Research Fellow
> >>> DART Project
> >>> School of Computing
> >>> University of Leeds
> >>>
> >>> DART has 3 fully funded PhD studentships advertised. More details at
> >>> www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/dart<http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/dart>
> >>>
> >>
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