Project and Professional Data

Data Management on

Post-Doctoral Research Projects and Beyond

• Different levels of archaeological research

• Data management for on-going research

• Professional Archaeology in the UK

• Archaeology Data Service (UK)– ArchSearch– Grey Literature online– Project Archives re-visiting

• Digital Antiquity (USA)

• Data management on larger research projects

• AHRC Technical Appendices to grant applications

• Case study discussions

Project and Professional Data

Data Management on

Post-Doctoral Research Projects and Beyond

15-20 mins

15-30 mins

Archaeological Research Data

• PhD Projects 3 years– Individual research: fully-funded / part-funded / self-funded– Part of larger research projects

• Post-Doctoral Fellowships 1 to 3 years– Individual fellowships– Research Associates on larger projects

• Small Research Projects 1-2 years– Individual or limited collaborators– Pilot projects– Spin off projects from previous projects

• Larger Research Projects 3-5 years– Collaborative– Multi-institutional– Inter-disciplinary

• On-going long term research - never ending– Personal research carried out in spare time between other work– Piecemeal funding– Non-funded

PhD Post-DocLecturer /

Independent Researcher Retire

Non-funded or piecemeal research grants over many years.

On-going and never-ending research projects.

No provision to deposit data along the way.

“…I’ll deal with sorting out my data when I retire…”

Balinese Temples are conceived of as never finished and on-

going ritual and architectural projects.

However beautiful they are, they are not a good model for

academic research data management!

Temple in Ubud’s Monkey Forest (Photographs: Kalyan3 on Flickr) And doing nothing about digital data is not an option either...

PhD Post-Doc

Lecturer / Independent Researcher Retire

Non-funded or piecemeal research grants over many years.

On-going research projects broken up into discrete blocks.

Data Management as part of a publication strategy

Rolling Data Management Plansfor on-going research

Institute for Archaeologists (UK) Standards and Archives Guidance

The Standard

All archaeological projects that include the recovery or generation of data and/or archaeological materials (finds) will result in a stable, ordered, accessible archive. All archaeologists are responsible for ensuring that the archive is created and compiled to recognised standards, using consistent methods, and is not subject to unnecessary risk of damage or loss.

Codes of Conduct

The archaeologist has responsibility for making available the results of archaeological work with reasonable dispatch

www.archaeologists.net/codes/ifa

Research Data and Codes of Conduct

Archaeological Institute of America

Code of Professional Standards

Responsibilities to the Archaeological Record

4. Archaeologists should make public the results of their research in a timely fashion, making evidence available to others if publication is not accomplished within a reasonable time.

Responsibilities to Colleagues

5. Archaeologists should honour reasonable requests from colleagues for access to materials and records, preserving existing rights to publication, but sharing information useful for the research of others. Scholars seeking access to unpublished information should not expect to receive interpretive information if that is also unpublished and in progress.

6. Before studying and/or publishing any unpublished material archaeologists should secure proper permission, normally in writing, from the appropriate project director or the appointed representative of the sponsoring institution and/or the antiquities authorities in the country of origin.

Responsibilities to the Discipline

3. Archaeologists should be explicit and accurate in acknowledging their use of words, ideas, data, and research findings of other scholars, and they should respect the property rights of copyright holders. Intellectual integrity requires the accurate and truthful reporting of the results of excavation and scholarship.

www.archaeological.org/news/advocacy/132

Research Data and Codes of Conduct

Professional Archaeological Data

Rescue Archaeology

• Discrete time-limited projects– Pre-planning surveys– Trial excavations– Full excavation

• Massive quantity of data to look after– Artefacts– Field data (physical and digital)– Derived digital data

• Vast majority of UK archaeological work undertaken as part of the planning process, administered by local authority archaeologists.

• 4,500 fieldwork events each year in England alone.

• Use of different recording standards for events recording.

Planning Policy Guidance 16: Archaeology and PlanningNov. 1990 – March 2010

Planning Policy Statement 5 – Development management23rd March 2010

www.tdar.org

The Changing Landscape of British Archaeology:

The Role of Data Management

Academic Archaeology Discrete 3-5 year projects and long-term research.Open access to publically funded project data.Rolling Data Management Plans for long-term research.

Changing ethos in data sharing.

Archaeology Data Service The meeting of research and rescue archaeology

Increased research focus for rescue excavations.

Grey-literature excavation reports online.

Rescue Archaeology Often discrete nature of rescue excavation data.Increased open access to raw excavation data.

• Data quantity

• Collaborative nature– What are individual researchers’ data vs project data?

• Multi-institutional– Data sharing

• International– Who owns the data?– What can / cannot be done with it?

• Multi-disciplinary– Different types of data with different requirements:

• standards, sensitive data, intellectual property rights, etc.

Larger Research Projects

Data Management Issues

Digital Data Curation Centre

Lifecycle Model

www.dcc.ac.uk because good research needs good data

4.Publish &

Deposit Data

5.Preservation

& Re-Use

1.Create

2.Active Use

3.Selection &Evaluation

1. What data will the project produce?

2. How will the data be organised?

(file structure/naming, formats, software)

3. Evaluate data management.

4. What data will be deposited and where?

5. Who will be interested in re-using the data?

Data Lifecycles & Management Plans

Data Management Plans for Larger Research Projects

Key Elements

• Define data output – Digital Dissemination and Project’s Digital Archive.

• Define data types (physical and digital)

• Check ethical and moral responsibilities for creation, use, and

potential future re-use of data.

– Are some of the data sensitive?

• Define roles and responsibilities for data management

– Who does what, when?

• Define timing of data management tasks

– Data input, evaluation, selection, publication, archive.

• How long will all of this take and how much will it cost?

• How much will it cost to deposit the project’s digital archive?

• Talk to the ADS early in project planning.

AHRC Technical Appendix

1. Project Management

2. Data Development

3. Infrastructural Support

4. Preservation

5. Access

6. Copyright

1. Introduction and Context

2. Legal and Ethical

3. Access, Sharing and Re-use

4. Standards and Capture Methods

5. Storage and Management

6. Deposit and Preservation

7. Resource [= Project Management]

8. Adherence [= Project Management]

9. Agreement & Ratification

10. Annex [= Contact Details]

DCCData Management Plan

www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/data-management-plans

Archaeology Data Service

Advice For AHRC Grant Applicants

Digital Curation

Centre

Data Management Plans

Cambridge University Library

Open Access Post-Graduate Teaching Materials for Research Data Management in Archaeology

Created by Lindsay Lloyd-Smith (2011)

Module 8 Project and Professional Data in Archaeology

AcknowledgementsThis material was created by the JISC-funded DataTrain Project based at the Cambridge University Library. Project manager: Elin Stangeland (Cambridge University Library)Project advisors: Stuart Jeffrey (Archaeology Data Service), Sian Lazar (Department of Anthropology, Cambridge University), Irene Peano (DataTrain Project Officer - Social Anthropology), Cameron Petrie (Department of Archaeology, Cambridge University), Grant Young (Cambridge University Library), and Anna Collins (DSpace@Cambridge Research Data and Digital Curation Officer).

Image creditsSlide 5: Temple in Ubud’s Monkey Forest. Photographs: www.flickr.com/photos/kalyan3/with/2789271311/Slides 10, 11: Original slides courtesy of Stuart Jeffrey, Archaeology Data Service.Slides 12, 13: Screenshots courtesy of the Archaeology Data ServiceSlide 14: Screenshots: Norwich, Castle Mall courtesy of Norfolk Archaeology Unit; The Urban Landscapes of Ancient Merv, Turkmenistan courtesy of Tim Williams, Institute of Archaeology, UCL.Slide 15: Screenshots courtesy of Digital Antiquity and The Digital Archaeology Record (USA).Slide 16: DCC Data Lifecycle and image of Checklist for a Data Management Plan courtesy of the Digital Curation Centre.Slide 22: Screenshots courtesy of the Archaeology Data Service. Screenshot and image of Checklist for a Data Management Plan courtesy of the Digital Curation Centre.

Creative Commons LicenceThe teaching materials are released under Creative Commons licence UK CC BY-NC-SA 2.0: By Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike. You are free to re-use, adapt, and build-upon the work for educational purposes. The material may not be used for commercial purposes outside of education. If the material is modified and further distributed it must be released under a similar CC licence.