The benefits of data opening for both science and society have been widely exposed. Data sharing not only helps making research more sustainable but also accelerates innovation, and Archaeology is not an exception. In fact, the openness of Archaeology in general and of archaeological research data has been seen not only as a beneficial practice but necessary, as a practically imperative solution to the already destructive nature of the archaeological research method, as well as an ethical obligation for a discipline that studies a public good such as heritage and uses mostly public funding.
In the road leading to open archaeological research data, researchers play a crucial role, as they are the ones who collect, work, and manage the data during most of their lifecycle. Considering this, it feels necessary to assess their points of view, to fully understand how they are managing and sharing (or not) their data, and why. Understanding the researchers’ perceptions and their current research data management practices can allow us not only to get to know the real starting point and evaluate the implementation of open data, but also to define the challenges this new model must overcome and develop a better strategy to foster its implementation.
My study focuses Catalan archaeology researchers, as this region has a dynamic and complex yet well-defined archaeological community that includes more than seven research institutions and nearly 30 research groups. With the goal to get to know these researchers’ practices and perspectives, I am conducting a series of interviews to 40 of the principal investigators of archaeological research projects. During the interviews, topics such as data management practices, data sharing practices, reuse practices as well as opinions around archaeological open data, its possibilities and challenges, are discussed. In this poster, I will be presenting the theoretical background of the study, the methodology applied, the design of the questionnaire, and an overview of the preliminary results gathered up to the moment.
Since 2012, archaeological open data has been an increasingly discussed topic. Most of the literature revolves around defining the main advantages and disadvantages of this model, which act as accelerators and barriers for its implementation.
In 2010, Costello listed the benefits of opening research data, many of which have been repetedly defended and expanded by other researchers:
Added value to research
Possibility to validate results
Prevention of scientifici misconduct and methodological fraud
Help to policy making
More sustainable research
Return of public investment made in research
Return of data to its original place/community
Most of these reasons to open research data are also valid for Archaeology, and authors agree that the discipline would benefit from a greater openness. To these already indentified pros to Open Research data, some more especific have been added (Moore & Richards, 2015) such as the increase of collaboration, the democratization of Archaeology, and the amelioration of the preservation of archaeological data.
However, there are also perceived disadvantages that act as barriers for the implementation of this model. In a systematic review of the open data literature, Chawinga (2019) identified the main barriers to data sharing:
Lack of incentives/recognition for researchers
Potential danger for sensitive data
Lack of time
Fear of losing rights over the data
Fear of misuse or misinterpretation of the data
Fear of losing the scoop
The main goals of this research were:
Assess the current practices of data management, sharing and reuse within the archaeological research projects in Catalonia
Analyse the rationale behind these practices
Determine whether the traditional accelerators and barriers to open data are perceived as so by Catalan archaeology researchers
The study focuses Catalan archaeology researchers, as this region has a dynamic and complex yet well-defined archaeological community that includes more than seven research institutions. Since 2014 there have been 26 active archaeological research groups, and 208 archaeological research projects have been funded by public institutions and granters, with a total of 138 distinct Principal Investigators. Out of these, we selected a sample of 40 for our research, but saturation was reached after 12 interviews.
Sample
Principal Investigators were selected as our population because they are currently the decision-makers. Therefore, their opinion is crucial to get to know the current practices and the rationale behind them.
Data collection
We conducted online semi-structured qualitative interviews. The interviews were recorded, and their average length was around 1 hour.
The questionnaire used to guide the interviews covered 3 topics:
Data creation and management habits within the project
Data sharing habits and perspectives of the researcher
Data reuse habits and perspectives of the researcher
Data analysis
The interviews were transcribed, and they are currently being coded and thematically analysed using qualitative content analysis, with both deductive and inductive codes.
Limitations
The population chosen to study is quite homogeneous. For future research, we would widen the population to include younger researchers, who might have different experience on dealing with research data and different perspectives. As prospective PI’s, their opinions could be key when planning future strategies to promote open data in archaeological research.
Professional archaeologists would also be considered, as most of the archaeological interventions are commercial.
This is still an ongoing research, and therefore the results are just preliminary and subject to changes as the investigation continues and concludes.
This research was supported by an FPI grant (Formación de Personal Investigador) from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCINN) to Sabina Batlle Baró (PRE2019-091286).
A special thanks to the organisation of DAB23 who gave me the opportunity to present my research.
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