• Publicationsclose
• Research softwareclose
• Other research productsclose
• GB close
• FI close
• CORE (RIOXX-UK Aggregator) close
• DARIAH EU close

Research funding organizations, particularly at international level, are increasingly promoting the\ud creation and maintenance of open access research infrastructures (RI). These resources have\ud assumed a pivotal role as support for the new open and networked science in their dimension of\ud technical and operational frameworks that allow scientists and stakeholders to collaborate and\ud share scientific data and results. In Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), the creation and\ud exploitation of open data platforms is still attempting to catch up with longer-standing practices\ud in the “hard sciences” as the resistance to wider data sharing has not yet been completely\ud overcome. This paper aims to describe how a large project, financed by the European\ud Commission, managed the creation of a RI in the field of SSH, showing the steps undertaken to\ud comply with the GDPR regulations and prepare the data for useful sharing and reuse. In this\ud regard, the authors present the case study of the Horizon 2020 “CultureLabs” project, placing\ud emphasis on some specific practical factors that they believe are particularly important for\ud implementing open access principles in the establishment and maintenance of RIs in the new\ud course of science based on sharing and openness. In particular, the authors will focus on creation\ud of “useful” and GDPR-compliant data and the impact on research activities as a result of their\ud (re)utilisation; the control of the data management process; and the compliance with funders’\ud requirements (e.g. in terms of data security). The reflection on the interplay of these aspects,\ud operated through a case study, appears to be crucial in moving away from a merely theoretical\ud approach to addressing the issue of open access, and it hopes to serve as a guide or a warning for\ud those who create and administer open RIs.

No abstract available.

It is essential that we develop effective systems for the management and preservation of digital heritage data. This chapter outlines the key issues surrounding access, sharing and curation, and describes current efforts to establish research infrastructures in a number of countries. It aims to provide a detailed overview of the issues involved in the creation, ingest, preservation and dissemination of 3D datasets in particular. The chapter incorporates specific examples from past and present Archaeology Data Service (ADS) projects and highlights the recent work undertaken by the ADS and partners to specify standards and workflows in order to aid the preservation and reuse of 3D datasets.

AbstractTropical peatlands are currently being rapidly cleared and drained for the establishment of oil palm plantations, which threatens their globally significant carbon sequestration capacity. Large-scale land conversion of tropical peatlands is important in the context of greenhouse gas emission factors and sustainable land management. At present, quantification of carbon dioxide losses from tropical peatlands is limited by our understanding of the relative contribution of heterotrophic and autotrophic respiration to net peat surface CO2 emissions. In this study we separated heterotrophic and autotrophic components of peat CO2 losses from two oil palm plantations (one established in ‘2000’ and the other in 1978, then replanted in ‘2006’) using chamber-based emissions sampling along a transect from the rooting to non-rooting zones on a peatland in Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia over the course of 3 months (June–August, 2014). Collar CO2 measurements were compared with soil temperature and moisture at site and also accompanied by depth profiles assessing peat C and bulk density. The soil respiration decreased exponentially with distance from the palm trunks with the sharpest decline found for the plantation with the younger palms with overall fluxes of 1341 and 988 mg CO2 m−2 h−1, respectively, at the 2000 and 2006 plantations, respectively. The mean heterotrophic flux was 909 ± SE 136 and 716 ± SE 201 mg m−2 h−1 at the 2000 and 2006 plantations, respectively. Autotrophic emissions adjacent to the palm trunks were 845 ± SE 135 and 1558 ± SE 341 mg m−2 h−1 at the 2000 and 2006 plantations, respectively. Heterotrophic CO2 flux was positively related to peat soil moisture, but not temperature. Total peat C stocks were 60 kg m−2 (down to 1 m depth) and did not vary among plantations of different ages but SOC concentrations declined significantly with depth at both plantations but the decline was sharper in the second generation 2006 plantation. The CO2 flux values reported in this study suggest a potential for very high carbon (C) loss from drained tropical peats during the dry season. This is particularly concerning given that more intense dry periods related to climate change are predicted for SE Asia. Taken together, this study highlights the need for careful management of tropical peatlands, and the vulnerability of their carbon storage capability under conditions of drainage.

Involving the collaboration of researchers from Classics, Geography and Archaeological Computing, and supported by funding from the AHRC, HESTIA (the Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Imaging Archive) aims to enrich contemporary discussions of space by developing an innovative methodology for the study of an ancient narrative, Herodotus’s Histories. Using the latest digital technology in combination with close textual study, we investigate the geographical concepts through which Herodotus describes the conflict between Greeks and Persians. Our findings nuance the customary topographical vision of an east versus west polarity by drawing attention to the topological network culture that criss-crosses the two, and develop the means of bringing that world to a mass audience via the internet. In this paper we discuss three main aspects to the project: the data capture of place-names in Herodotus; their visualization and dissemination using the web-mapping technologies of GIS, Google Earth and Timemap; and the interrogation of the relationships that Herodotus draws between different geographical concepts using the digital resources at our disposal. Our concern will be to set out in some detail the digital basis to our methodology and the technologies that we have been exploiting, as well as the problems that we have encountered, in the hope of contributing not only to a more complex picture of space in Herodotus but also to a basis for future digital projects across the Humanities that spatially visualize large text-based corpora. With this in mind we end with a brief discussion of some of the ways in which this study is being developed, with assistance from research grants from the Google Digital Humanities Awards Program and JISC.

HESTIA (the Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Imaging Archive) employs the latest digital technology to develop an innovative methodology to the study of spatial data in Herodotus’ Histories. Using a digital text of Herodotus, freely available from the Perseus on-line library, to capture all the place-names mentioned in the narrative, we construct a database to house that information and represent it in a series of mapping applications, such as GIS, GoogleEarth and GoogleMap Timeline. As a collaboration of academics from the disciplines of Classics, Geography, and Archaeological Computing, HESTIA has the twin aim of investigating the ways geography is represented in the Histories and of bringing Herodotus’ world into people’s homes.

To foster responsible research and innovation, research communities, institutions, and funders are shifting their practices and requirements towards Open Science. Open Science skills are becoming increasingly essential for researchers. Indeed general awareness of Open Science has grown among EU researchers, but the practical adoption can be further improved. Recognizing a gap between the needed and the provided training offer, the FOSTER project offers practical guidance and training to help researchers learn how to open up their research within a particular domain or research environment. Aiming for a sustainable approach, FOSTER focused on strengthening the Open Science training capacity by establishing and supporting a community of trainers. The creation of an Open Science training handbook was a first step towards bringing together trainers to share their experiences and to create an open and living knowledge resource. A subsequent series of train-the-trainer bootcamps helped trainers to find inspiration, improve their skills and to intensify exchange within a peer group. Four trainers, who attended one of the bootcamps, contributed a case study on their experiences and how they rolled out Open Science training within their own institutions. On its platform the project provides a range of online courses and resources to learn about key Open Science topics. FOSTER awards users gamification badges when completing courses in order to provide incentives and rewards, and to spur them on to even greater achievements in learning. The paper at hand describes FOSTER Plus’ training strategies, shares the lessons learnt and provides guidance on how to re-use the project’s materials and training approaches. Peer reviewed

Defining what constitute archaeological practices is a prerequisite for understanding where and how archaeological and archaeologically relevant information and knowledge are made, what counts as archaeological information, and where the limits are situated. The aim of this position paper, developed as a part of the COST action Archaeological practices and knowledge work in the digital environment (www.arkwork.eu), is to highlight the need for at least a relative consensus on the extents of archaeological practices in order to be able to understand and develop archaeological practices and knowledge work in the contemporary digital context. The text discusses approaches to study archaeological practices and knowledge work including Nicolini’s notions of zooming in and zooming out, and proposes that a distinction between archaeological and archaeology-related practices could provide a way to negotiate the ‘archaeologicality’ of diverse practices.

Abstract This progress article focuses on an overview of the potential and challenges of using contemporary Geographic Information System (GIS) applications for the visual rendering and analysis of textual spatial data. The case study is an ancient traveling narrative, Pausanias’s Description of Greece (Periegesis Hellados) which was written in the second century CE. First, we describe the process of converting the volumes to spatial data using a customized version of the open-source digital semantic annotation platform Recogito. Then the focus shifts to the implementation of collected and organized spatial data to a number of GIS applications: namely Google Maps, DARIAH Geo-Browser, Gephi, Palladio and ArcGIS. Through empirical experimentation with spatial data and their implementation in different platforms, our paper charts the ways in which contemporary GIS applications may be implemented to cast new light on ancient understandings of identity, space, and place.