Opening access to heritage resources: risk, opportunity or paradigm shift?
45
ple to examine the impact of the work on regional
agendas) and alternative synthetic Output (for exam-
ple producing populär synthesis which encourages
people to re-use the data). As many large UK contract
units are also charities with an educational remit this
repositioning would enhance engagement and provi-
de a catalyst for public access to Open data. This
should make the excavation process cheaper for the
commercial archaeological contractor, and by proxy,
the dient. The incentives in the commercial frame-
work are more about changing the execution of the
business process rather than incentivising individuals.
Although contract and academic archaeologists will
be the creators of the majority of data, curatorial
archaeologists are key stakeholders and mediators of
knowledge. The technologies and approaches descri-
bed here have the potential to significantly disrupt
this sector. Although many benefits have been descri-
bed the very process of change has social implications
and would need effective management. For at least
the past decade UK curatorial Services at a regional
and national level have been significantly cut. This has
damaged morale. The introduction of Systems that
fundamentally change working practice are likely to
create issues around role perception, recognition and
job security. These will need effective management.
Whilst these archaeologists will still produce curatori-
al and planning advice they will start to base this advi-
ce on a variety of data sources rather than just the
Historie Environment Information Resource (HEIR)
they maintain. This may be seen to erode prestige and
relevance: this will also need managing. However, rat-
her than spending time maintaining and updating a
dataset based on at least secondary synthesis, curato-
rial archaeologists will be direetly accessing the full
corpus of archaeological knowledge to address regio-
nal and national policy and research agendas. This has
the potential to be more engaging and mean that the
sector has more relevance to both planning, research
and the public. It could be argued that large scale pro-
jects that employ many archaeological contractors,
such as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, could see many
benefits by opening the data from these project at an
early stage so that the curatorial archaeologists can
work more effectively with the Consultant, contract
and research archaeologists to develop more nuanced
strategies and Outputs.
Finally there are issues of public engagement and
accountability. By making the results of academic and
contract archaeology open then the public can enga-
ge with the resource more effectively and link plan-
ning and research policy actions direetly to outcomes
(a form of process transparency). A number of incum-
bent governments have had aspirations to make local
and national decision making Systems more transpa-
rent. There is also another facet, and one which is fol-
lowed by the author: open is the 'right thing to do'.
This is particularly relevant to academics who are fun-
ded through the public purse: it's a duty to communi-
cate their research and its social and ethical implicati-
ons both to policy-makers and to the non-specialist
public. There is an increasing view that these types of
non-academic engagements are richer, participatory,
relationships that go far beyond simple outreach
(MORI 2000; Royal Society, RCUK, and Wellcome
Trust 2006, 9; Poliakoff and Webb 2007).
Conclusions
The Internet has and is changing society: it has helped
to increase expectations of access which in turn has
led to more transparent and open positions from
governments and institutions. Access to data and
derivatives, particularly data collected through public
funds, is likely to be significantly enhanced. Impor-
tantly this will not just be the Provision of data in
books, or their digital facsimiles, but the Provision of
source data that is structured in a way which can be
consumed by a multitude of users on the semantic
web. This jars against how data and derivatives are
currently structured. Traditionally the planning proces-
ses uses higher level synthesis (site reports etc.) as a
basis for decision making. This essentially decouples
the link between the physical observations and the
structuring knowledge environment and the available
information from which to make decisions. The
decoupling of data to generate synthesis is increasing-
ly problematic when one considers we are still dealing
with a data explosion producing in the words of
English Heritage (1995) 'a large and inaccessible data
mountain'. It is essential that data needs to be linked
more closely to synthesis, management, curation and
policy. Open Archaeology principles help to re-estab-
lish these links.
Data is starting to receive the attention it deserves.
Initiatives such as Open Data and Open Science are
providing access to an unprecedented amount of data
(and the algorithms and methods which can be used
to transform and synthesise it). International policy
initiatives such as INSPIRE are forcing governments to
address transnational data and semantic integration
and access issues. It is imperative that ways are found
for researchers, curators, policy makers and the public
to overcome the ethical, legal and technical challen-
ges in providing data and other research objects
whilst realizing the potential of all the resource. In
addition, in a world which is increasingly reliant on
data and associated metrics on provenance and accu-
racy, we should be providing mechanism whereby
providers of such data can be cited and rewarded
45
ple to examine the impact of the work on regional
agendas) and alternative synthetic Output (for exam-
ple producing populär synthesis which encourages
people to re-use the data). As many large UK contract
units are also charities with an educational remit this
repositioning would enhance engagement and provi-
de a catalyst for public access to Open data. This
should make the excavation process cheaper for the
commercial archaeological contractor, and by proxy,
the dient. The incentives in the commercial frame-
work are more about changing the execution of the
business process rather than incentivising individuals.
Although contract and academic archaeologists will
be the creators of the majority of data, curatorial
archaeologists are key stakeholders and mediators of
knowledge. The technologies and approaches descri-
bed here have the potential to significantly disrupt
this sector. Although many benefits have been descri-
bed the very process of change has social implications
and would need effective management. For at least
the past decade UK curatorial Services at a regional
and national level have been significantly cut. This has
damaged morale. The introduction of Systems that
fundamentally change working practice are likely to
create issues around role perception, recognition and
job security. These will need effective management.
Whilst these archaeologists will still produce curatori-
al and planning advice they will start to base this advi-
ce on a variety of data sources rather than just the
Historie Environment Information Resource (HEIR)
they maintain. This may be seen to erode prestige and
relevance: this will also need managing. However, rat-
her than spending time maintaining and updating a
dataset based on at least secondary synthesis, curato-
rial archaeologists will be direetly accessing the full
corpus of archaeological knowledge to address regio-
nal and national policy and research agendas. This has
the potential to be more engaging and mean that the
sector has more relevance to both planning, research
and the public. It could be argued that large scale pro-
jects that employ many archaeological contractors,
such as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, could see many
benefits by opening the data from these project at an
early stage so that the curatorial archaeologists can
work more effectively with the Consultant, contract
and research archaeologists to develop more nuanced
strategies and Outputs.
Finally there are issues of public engagement and
accountability. By making the results of academic and
contract archaeology open then the public can enga-
ge with the resource more effectively and link plan-
ning and research policy actions direetly to outcomes
(a form of process transparency). A number of incum-
bent governments have had aspirations to make local
and national decision making Systems more transpa-
rent. There is also another facet, and one which is fol-
lowed by the author: open is the 'right thing to do'.
This is particularly relevant to academics who are fun-
ded through the public purse: it's a duty to communi-
cate their research and its social and ethical implicati-
ons both to policy-makers and to the non-specialist
public. There is an increasing view that these types of
non-academic engagements are richer, participatory,
relationships that go far beyond simple outreach
(MORI 2000; Royal Society, RCUK, and Wellcome
Trust 2006, 9; Poliakoff and Webb 2007).
Conclusions
The Internet has and is changing society: it has helped
to increase expectations of access which in turn has
led to more transparent and open positions from
governments and institutions. Access to data and
derivatives, particularly data collected through public
funds, is likely to be significantly enhanced. Impor-
tantly this will not just be the Provision of data in
books, or their digital facsimiles, but the Provision of
source data that is structured in a way which can be
consumed by a multitude of users on the semantic
web. This jars against how data and derivatives are
currently structured. Traditionally the planning proces-
ses uses higher level synthesis (site reports etc.) as a
basis for decision making. This essentially decouples
the link between the physical observations and the
structuring knowledge environment and the available
information from which to make decisions. The
decoupling of data to generate synthesis is increasing-
ly problematic when one considers we are still dealing
with a data explosion producing in the words of
English Heritage (1995) 'a large and inaccessible data
mountain'. It is essential that data needs to be linked
more closely to synthesis, management, curation and
policy. Open Archaeology principles help to re-estab-
lish these links.
Data is starting to receive the attention it deserves.
Initiatives such as Open Data and Open Science are
providing access to an unprecedented amount of data
(and the algorithms and methods which can be used
to transform and synthesise it). International policy
initiatives such as INSPIRE are forcing governments to
address transnational data and semantic integration
and access issues. It is imperative that ways are found
for researchers, curators, policy makers and the public
to overcome the ethical, legal and technical challen-
ges in providing data and other research objects
whilst realizing the potential of all the resource. In
addition, in a world which is increasingly reliant on
data and associated metrics on provenance and accu-
racy, we should be providing mechanism whereby
providers of such data can be cited and rewarded