0.17 Sustaining digital scholarship in archaeology  (Page 3/3)

In addition to the two pathways outlined above, it is also worth noting that some publishers have begun to explore, if not require, the archiving of supporting digital information. For example, a group of university presses ( (External Link) ) is exploring the establishment of a collaborative, stable, and sustainable platform for the publication of enhanced archaeological monographs, digital and print, that incorporate access to image and video files, GIS maps, 3D laser scans, and databases. Once again, the Andrew Mellon Foundation is supporting this innovative effort. In another instance, several professional journals that focus on issues of ecology and evolution have instituted a new requirement that supporting data for publications must be archived in an appropriate public archive (Whitlock et al. 2010). I expect such policies will become more common in the future; should that happen, the policies will help support efforts such as ADS and tDAR.

Groups such as ADS and tDAR address two key issues that Todd Presner

highlights in his discussion of HyperCities, the importance of both standards and cyberinfrastructure to sustainability. To the extent that the two organizations will provide the cyberinfrastructure that becomes central to archiving archaeological data, they also will encourage, if not enforce, standards by specifying which types of files they will and will not archive. Standards and cyberinfrastructure are thus closely intertwined.

Nevertheless, ADH and tDAR are designed to preserve files, not websites. Certainly if you remove the web-based integration and links that are part of DAACS or the Chaco Archive websites, the core relational databases constructed by the projects still remain, and those databases contain much of the information and research value of the two projects. However, we would lose the tools and links built to enhance the visibility and accessibility of the information; that integrate visual, textual, and quantitative information in ways not provided by the core database; and that allow users to explore and query the information in flexible and ideally intuitive ways that don’t require an understanding of complex relational database programs or the history of archaeological research. That loss would be extremely significant. Thus, although I believe the creation and continued evolution of ADS and tDAR is very important, if we want to retain the full value of efforts such as DAACS and the Chaco Archive, university institutions that will not simply preserve files but also retain the functionality of the websites remain key.

Projects such as HyperCities increase the complexity of the issues because their architecture exploits information scattered around the world. In more centralized projects such as the Chaco Archive and DAACS, by creating and maintaining the core database and supporting website, it is possible to maintain greater coherence and focus, but contributions to the core data are limited to a small group. HyperCities, however, links together geographically dispersed data sets stored on multiple servers. This dispersed collection may give the project more widespread application by attracting a broader supporting audience. However, dispersed projects face greater risks. Multiple infrastructures are involved, and not only must the basic files be maintained but also the links that bridge these files. Those links create new opportunities and at the same time new vulnerabilities. To the extent that the architecture is modular, eliminating one component will not impact the others. If, however, the goal is to gain new insights through comparative, cross-cultural analysis, then the loss of individual components is significant. As more individual components fail, the significance of the impact may well increase exponentially rather than arithmetically.

The focus on sustainability has lagged behind scholarly innovation, and I expect that will always be the case. As research discoveries are made through the development of new avenues of access and analysis, the importance of those discoveries hopefully will provide the incentive to preserve and maintain those avenues. For online digital scholarship, the architectural, financial and institutional issues of sustaining digital scholarship have only begun to be explored. Nevertheless, the increasing focus on sustaining digital scholarship by academic institutions, professional organizations, academic presses, and national libraries is one of the most promising developments of the last few years.

Acknowledgements

I thank Worthy Martin and Simon Bickler for their comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript, and Fraser Neiman for many insightful conversations on digital scholarship over the last several years.

References

Whitlock, Michael C., Mark A. McPeek, Mark A. Rausher, Loren Rieseberg, and Allen J. Moore.

2010 Data Archiving. American Naturalist 175:145-146.