[open-archaeology] [Antiquist] Re: Heritage Method Store Proposal
Federico Morando
federico.morando at polito.it
Thu Sep 23 15:10:16 UTC 2010
Dear all,
I'll be there (SkypeID: fedemuras) at 6 PM (CEST).
Best,
Federico
On 09/23/2010 04:40 PM, Anthony Beck wrote:
> Dear Federico and all,
>
> I'm all for crowd-sourcing and community engagement at whatever level.
> Many of these things tie into the aspirations of the OKF as they
> require open access to data, concepts and knowledge repositories. The
> common aim is to get an active community behind the initiatives.
>
> May I encourage you all to come into the 5pm skype meeting this
> afternoon to discusss these topics
>
> Best
>
> Ant
>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 3:34 PM, Federico Morando
> <federico.morando at gmail.com <mailto:federico.morando at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Dear David and Cameron, dear all,
>
> thanks for your kind feedback and apologies for my original
> largely off-topic message: I admit that the link with the topic
> post was at most weak... my point, in fact, was that some simple
> technologies and methodologies could favor the kind of interaction
> with amateurs and enthusiasts that I was describing. Hence, I was
> pointing out that individuating these technologies could have been
> a nice by-product of the method store.
>
> I agree with your suggestion: let's keep these things separate. I
> will be happy to go on discussing these issues on the
> [open-archaeology] list, if you agree, and I would suggest
> labeling this topic as "crowd-sourcing archaeological data". [I
> can think about various, frequently very different, kinds of
> "crowd-sourcing", but I don't want to discuss them under the
> "Heritage Method Store Proposal": I've already done enough
> off-topic discussion! ;-)]
>
> Stefano, do you think that this discussion is worth the creation
> of a pad like the following:
> http://archeo.okfnpad.org/crowdsource-archaeo-data
> ? (I hope that your answer is "Yes", because I know that you're
> very sensitive to issues related to user generated content and the
> like.)
> I think that we could already start populating this pad with
> interesting points, since I definitely agree with Cameron about
> the reasons because of which a pilot related to ancient coins
> could be appropriate (and I would be happy to expand these points
> with specific examples).
>
> Best,
>
> Federico
>
>
> On 09/23/2010 08:47 AM, Cameron Neylon wrote:
>> Dear All
>>
>> Just to give some context, my connection with this is that I’m
>> helping out the DART project with advice on data management, web
>> infrastructure and how best to run an “open project”. My
>> background is really in structural biology so I’m seeing this
>> from an outsiders perspective on the technical side. One of my
>> other interests is how to truly engage the wider community in
>> research efforts (see the most recent slideshow at
>> http://slideshare.net/cameronneylon for a recent rant on the
>> subject). So this discussion is very close to my heart.
>>
>> I find the idea of a collective coin sharing side quite
>> compelling from a number of perspectives. It does seem like a
>> very good case where there is a community and there is a
>> motivation to share information. It could also provide a good
>> test bed for wider sharing of finds (my impression is that there
>> is already a community that shares information here quite a lot)
>> and also photos of archaeological significance (thinking crop for
>> example). There is also a possible engagement activity here with
>> taking high quality photographic equipment to meets to help
>> people record their finds according to best practice I would guess.
>>
>> It would be very interesting to share for instance images of
>> coins, the location of finds, and the provenance trail. I am
>> guessing that there is significant swapping between collections
>> and helping people to track that via the passing on of records
>> could be very interesting. I would also imagine that people are a
>> bit uncomfortable with sharing the location of finds (and there
>> are probably both good and bad reasons for that) but it would be
>> a very interesting thing to probe. If it encouraged a bit more
>> recording of the discovery and recovery process that could
>> presumably hardly be a bad thing. It would be worthwhile in this
>> regard to talk to the Galaxy Zoo people as they have some
>> infrastructure to support this kind of thing.
>>
>> I agree this is quite separate to a method store and its good to
>> keep separate things separate. I can see how connections would
>> form in the future but it would likely be better to let them
>> evolve on their own in the first instance. I would encourage you
>> to think about how to take these ideas forward tho.
>>
>> Hope this is helpful.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Cameron
>>
>>
>>
>> On 22/09/2010 19:23, "david stott" <davstott at gmail.com
>> <http://davstott@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Federico:
>> I entirely agree- this has been something I've been thinking
>> about quite a lot recently and am really keen to get started
>> on soon. It is, however something quite different from the
>> method store i think.
>>
>> The idea that we can enrich our records with information from
>> amatuer archaeologists and other interested people is one
>> that a lot of archaeologists I've dicsussed it with seem
>> quite sceptical about- but I think the idea that we can
>> crowd-source archaeological data has a lot of advantages and
>> could be a very powerful resource- especially in areas where
>> there are not the curatorial resources to manage cultural
>> heritage effectively. It is something that came up at the
>> AARG conference recently and that Anthony Beck, Oscar Aldred,
>> I and others discussed fairly extensively over the weekend.
>> I'm busy tonight but would be delighted to discuss how´we can
>> do more in future!
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> On 22 September 2010 16:50, Federico Morando
>> <federico.morando at gmail.com
>> <http://federico.morando@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I would like to add a perspective about this interesting
>> topic: as a by-product of this (admittedly quite
>> ambitious) project, some simple methodologies (and
>> possibly some related how-to) could be recommended to
>> various hobbyist and amateurs (e.g. coin collectors)
>> wanting to share information online.
>>
>> In fact, this suggestion comes from the fact that I'm
>> interested in these topics from two points of view: as a
>> researcher working on public sector information (and
>> content) related issues from a multidisciplinary point of
>> view (law, technology & economics), taking into account
>> the possibilities of interactions between information
>> held by - say - public universities and user generated
>> content; as a ancient coin collector (with a specific
>> interest in relationships between amateurs and
>> professionals and in legal schemes trying to minimize
>> abuses and looting, maximizing the circulation of
>> information: e.g. the portable antiquities scheme in UK
>> and relates norms).
>>
>> For instance, coin collectors frequently share online
>> pictures and other infos about their collections, but
>> they tend to do so ignoring (at least in part) best
>> practices and/or standards which could help in making a
>> scientific use of these pieces of information
>> (nonetheless, I think that today websites such as
>> http://wildwinds.com/ may help archaeologists without a
>> strong numismatic background in identifying ancient
>> coins). The kind of how-to which could help coin
>> collectors making their information more usable for
>> researchers includes, for instance, best practices to add
>> semantic information to online collections of pictures of
>> ancient coins (RDF related technologies, such as RDFa,
>> ontologies and dictionaries, etc.).
>>
>> Similarly, exposing some information about their
>> findings, also archaeologist could sometimes benefit from
>> interactions with amateurs: for instance, I have some
>> friends working as archaeologist and they had to admit
>> more than once that I know more than them (or their
>> colleagues on a given excavation) about certain kinds of
>> coins (e.g. late Roman bronzes or Celtic coins of
>> northern Italy). That happens simply because I'm
>> specialized on a very narrow subset of potentially
>> archaeologically relevant knowledge, but this already
>> allowed me to casually help one of them in identifying a
>> worn coin simply looking at a picture, while my friend
>> did not have many clues to start its identification (in
>> fact, to me that flat bronze disk was clearly a
>> Republican Roman as, but from the stratigraphic
>> information one would have been pushed to think about
>> medieval coins...).
>> [There is interesting research going on in various fields
>> about crowd-sourcing and I think that - up to a certain
>> points - something could be done also in archaeology...
>> it has been done for complex mathematical problems, but
>> NASA also did that with a certain success for identifying
>> craters on Mars, for instance...]
>>
>> So, to make a long story short, I think it could be nice
>> to think about methodologies (and software tools)
>> creating a bridge between professional archaeologist and
>> various kind of amateurs. More specifically, I would
>> suggest to do some pilot work on ancient coins, simply
>> because there are big communities of coin collectors
>> online, because researchers in this field always used the
>> work of collectors quite intensively (many well known
>> ancient coins catalogues have been written by collectors
>> in the past), but also because I would happily volunteer
>> as collector participating in such a pilot and/or
>> proposing this idea to other collectors.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Federico
>>
>>
>>
>> On 09/21/2010 06:57 PM, Stefano Costa wrote:
>>
>> Il giorno mar, 21/09/2010 alle 10.09 +0100, Leif
>> Isaksen ha scritto:
>>
>> - 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.
>>
>> I will reply in more detail later, but for the moment
>> being I'd like to
>> point out that a very similar web platform is already
>> available on OKFN
>> infrastructure, e.g. see http://ask.okfn.org/en/
>>
>> The major difference (and advantage, IMHO) would be
>> in self-hosting and
>> capability to license everything under CC-BY.
>>
>> I've started drafting the current proposal at
>> http://archeo.okfnpad.org/methodology-store - please
>> feel free to
>> contribute.
>>
>> Ciao,
>> steko
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 22 September 2010 16:50, Federico Morando
>> <federico.morando at gmail.com
>> <http://federico.morando@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I would like to add a perspective about this interesting
>> topic: as a by-product of this (admittedly quite
>> ambitious) project, some simple methodologies (and
>> possibly some related how-to) could be recommended to
>> various hobbyist and amateurs (e.g. coin collectors)
>> wanting to share information online.
>>
>> In fact, this suggestion comes from the fact that I'm
>> interested in these topics from two points of view: as a
>> researcher working on public sector information (and
>> content) related issues from a multidisciplinary point of
>> view (law, technology & economics), taking into account
>> the possibilities of interactions between information
>> held by - say - public universities and user generated
>> content; as a ancient coin collector (with a specific
>> interest in relationships between amateurs and
>> professionals and in legal schemes trying to minimize
>> abuses and looting, maximizing the circulation of
>> information: e.g. the portable antiquities scheme in UK
>> and relates norms).
>>
>> For instance, coin collectors frequently share online
>> pictures and other infos about their collections, but
>> they tend to do so ignoring (at least in part) best
>> practices and/or standards which could help in making a
>> scientific use of these pieces of information
>> (nonetheless, I think that today websites such as
>> http://wildwinds.com/ may help archaeologists without a
>> strong numismatic background in identifying ancient
>> coins). The kind of how-to which could help coin
>> collectors making their information more usable for
>> researchers includes, for instance, best practices to add
>> semantic information to online collections of pictures of
>> ancient coins (RDF related technologies, such as RDFa,
>> ontologies and dictionaries, etc.).
>>
>> Similarly, exposing some information about their
>> findings, also archaeologist could sometimes benefit from
>> interactions with amateurs: for instance, I have some
>> friends working as archaeologist and they had to admit
>> more than once that I know more than them (or their
>> colleagues on a given excavation) about certain kinds of
>> coins (e.g. late Roman bronzes or Celtic coins of
>> northern Italy). That happens simply because I'm
>> specialized on a very narrow subset of potentially
>> archaeologically relevant knowledge, but this already
>> allowed me to casually help one of them in identifying a
>> worn coin simply looking at a picture, while my friend
>> did not have many clues to start its identification (in
>> fact, to me that flat bronze disk was clearly a
>> Republican Roman as, but from the stratigraphic
>> information one would have been pushed to think about
>> medieval coins...).
>> [There is interesting research going on in various fields
>> about crowd-sourcing and I think that - up to a certain
>> points - something could be done also in archaeology...
>> it has been done for complex mathematical problems, but
>> NASA also did that with a certain success for identifying
>> craters on Mars, for instance...]
>>
>> So, to make a long story short, I think it could be nice
>> to think about methodologies (and software tools)
>> creating a bridge between professional archaeologist and
>> various kind of amateurs. More specifically, I would
>> suggest to do some pilot work on ancient coins, simply
>> because there are big communities of coin collectors
>> online, because researchers in this field always used the
>> work of collectors quite intensively (many well known
>> ancient coins catalogues have been written by collectors
>> in the past), but also because I would happily volunteer
>> as collector participating in such a pilot and/or
>> proposing this idea to other collectors.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Federico
>>
>>
>>
>> On 09/21/2010 06:57 PM, Stefano Costa wrote:
>>
>> Il giorno mar, 21/09/2010 alle 10.09 +0100, Leif
>> Isaksen ha scritto:
>>
>> - 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.
>>
>> I will reply in more detail later, but for the moment
>> being I'd like to
>> point out that a very similar web platform is already
>> available on OKFN
>> infrastructure, e.g. see http://ask.okfn.org/en/
>>
>> The major difference (and advantage, IMHO) would be
>> in self-hosting and
>> capability to license everything under CC-BY.
>>
>> I've started drafting the current proposal at
>> http://archeo.okfnpad.org/methodology-store - please
>> feel free to
>> contribute.
>>
>> Ciao,
>> steko
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Scanned by iCritical.
>>
>>
>
>
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