forum: Web Portals and the Historic Environment
Submitted by Torsten Reimer on Fri, 21/09/2007 - 11:48.
Stuart Jeffrey organised the conference Data Sans Frontières: Web Portals and the Historic Environment for the Historic Environment Information Resources Network (HEIRNET), a conference that was supported by the Methods Network and the British Museum. Stuart works as User Services Manager for the Archaeology Data Service (ADS), where he is responsible for promoting the ADS and usage of its online catalogue and digital resources amongst user communities. He has a Ph.D. in Three Dimensional modelling in Archaeology and retains a strong research interest in three dimensional data management and visualisation.
disseminating and integrating historic environment data
Hi Stuart,
Archaeology seems to be a discipline where the use of ICT methods is prevalent. Not only are there many projects, there is also a variety of tools and methods that go way beyond the use of XML for publishing and editing documents. I guess that means that as a member of the ADS, you are constantly in contact with a variety of users with very different data and problems. Is that what sparked your interest in organising 'Data Sans Frontières' as a means to 'look at exciting new opportunities for disseminating and integrating historic environment data using portal technologies and Web 2.0 approaches', as the conference abstract says?
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Torsten Reimer
http://www.methodsnetwork.ac.uk
disseminating and integrating historic environment data
Hi Torsten,
It's true that ICT methods are quite widely adopted in arhaeology, probably more so than just about any other A&H discipline. That said, the real driving force behind the 'Data Sans Frontières' (DSF) meeting was a recognition that a particular area of archaeological information management was burgeoning in response to changes in technology. Specifically the Historic Environment Records and National Monuments Records, a key tool in research as well as curatorial archaeology, are beginning to adopt SOA approaches to dissemination and integration. This is undoubtedly a good thing and opens up a whole new range of opportunities for wider data sharing, data currency and exploitation of Web 2.0 approaches such as GIS 'mash-ups'. However, there are a couple of issues regarding access to data and how the whole sector moves forward in a more coherent and strategic way that would benefit from an airing - hopefully that is what DSF achieved.
In essence the idea behind DSF was that in order to fully exploit these technological developments in the UK and internationally, early and full cooperation between data curators would be of enormous benefit, and HEIRNET seemed like the ideal vehicle to catalyse that cooperation.
Stuart.
issues for portals
Could I ask you to give an example of the ways that websites/-services use Service Oriented Architecture and (the variety of technologies that are subsumed under) Web 2.0 for dissemination and integration of archaeological data? Are these services mainly of interest for archaeologists, the academic community or even the wider public? I remember from the conference that at least some of the projects that were presented have a very large audience, which means that the issues you mentioned might not only be important for 'digital archaeologists'.
This makes the follow-up question inevitable: What are the issues? You have hinted at legal problems - copyright and access to materials will, I assume, be important here - but what other major challenges are there that DSF did address?
DSF
Torsten,
The two most pertinent examples of SOA approaches are probably the ARENA project (Archaeological Records of Europe Networked Access - http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/arena/) this is an ADS project completed in 2004 that used SOA to link HER/NMR type datasets from six European countries (and Iceland). However, it used Z39.50 and OAI as the underlying technologies. The other example would be English Heritage's new Heritage Gateway project (http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/gateway) - this links a number of English Heritage's own resources, a selection of HERs and the Excavation Index held by the ADS. This example uses web services as the service layer. We feel that this is a much more flexible and extensible approach than that used by ARENA and is certainly the way that HEIRNET would be most likely to go. We are also hoping to recast ARENA with web services at some point in the future.
Regarding your second point, both the ADS and English Heritage (as well as just about every other curator of archaeological data) has a large audience out with academia. People can be very engaged with their own cultural heritage, often seeing it as some defining component of their localities, their communities or even of broader constructs like their 'nation' - as a result where archaeological data is available it will find a ready audience in all sectors of society. This can lead to interesting problems of interpretation, since much archaeological information is presented in the vernacular of archaeological field practice or academic archaeological discourse, the implications of this are beyond the scope of this forum, but its worth noting that there is a general movement towards making archaeological data, especially that curated by central and local government, as openly available as possible despite its dry, technical and often contentious nature. This can only be a good thing and is welcomed as such by most professional archaeologists, but to say it is entirely unproblematic would be naive.
This leads nicely to your final question, it would take a long time to go through every potential issue that has been raised by people regarding opening access to their archaeological datasets for consumption as web services. However they can really be summed up in three main groups:
1. The data is not reliable and/or incomplete. (e.g. the raw data will be used for some CRM purpose such as development control, without the necessary caveats and advice being sought)
2. The data will be misused (e.g. exposing fragile sites to illegal activities such as 'nighthawking')
3. The data will appear mashed-up in an in appropriate context. (e.g. the data will appear mashed-up with and being used as a lure for some external commercial service).
It would be wrong not to recognise that these are legitimate concerns, although they each have a number of possible solutions. As a personal opinion I would say that the potential benefits in terms of creating broader and radically alternative views on the data and the deeper engagement of the public (and other academic disciplines) with the past would out weigh these concerns, even if there wasn’t reasonable remedies available. However they cannot simply be dismissed. DSF was a forum in which these different views could be ventilated and I think a more general consensus that openess is a good thing in itself emerged.
Stuart.
SOA and Web 2.0
I'm very sorry I missed this event.
A question, or perhaps set of questions, for Stuart: Whenever we talk about the relationship between Web 2.0 and SOA (which Web2.0Journal recently described as 'the most interesting question currently facing IT'), it seems that the phrase 'mash-up' is never far behind. Who, in your experience, is, or should be, doing the mashing up for delivering diffuse archaeological resources? And what direction should we be going in? Should we be looking at more sophisticated ways of orchestrating diverse webs services for particular purposes at developer/sysadmin level, or is the priority to develop more user-friendly APIs so that the 'archaeologist down the hall' can pick'n'mix their own resources?
SOA and Web 2.0
Hi Stuart,
I have to say that I favour the notion that Web 2.0 is not so much a set of technologies as just a different way of thinking about the web - SOA being an enabling technology. There are lots of strands that make up that new way of thinking, but I suppose the most pertinent here are:
1. User generated content - in this case, users of archaeological resources adding to or editing the data
2. mash-ups, or 'adding value' which involves combining various types of data in new ways such that that the sum is more than the value of the parts.
3. Machine to machine communication via data semantics - in an archaeological context the first manifestation of this is likely to be in more sophisticated aggregation of diverse datasets and even the automated structuring of unstructured data.
Their is a lot of different ways that these three notions might impact on archaeological practice and the key question that people seem to be wrestling with is who gets access to manipulate it, mash it up or structure it? Unsurprisingly, as archaeology is a highly theorised discipline, this has sparked some very interesting debates about access and control, especially with regard to the academy vs. the public. A lot of ink will be spilt on this topic, and mostly the suggestion will be that any hint that data access should be controlled or moderated in any way will be a barely disguised knee-jerk by data curators intent on keeping control of privileged knowledge in order to retain the 'power' this brings. I think this does a disservice to data curators, the academy does not always recognise the diverse uses that this data is put to and the legal and social implications it has under current planning and monument protection legislation. Even when data, such as that actually held by the ADS (rather than delivered), seems to have no bearing on anything outside a research context, archaeologists should be aware of the potential political use and abuse of such information. Vince Gaffney made this point very eloquently at the AHRC ICT Methods Network Space/Time workshop in Edinburgh.
Having said all the above, I am still of the opinion that the overwhelming majority of data curators are well aware of the benefits to be gained from sharing it more widely and allowing all kinds of users to contribute to it and integrate it into their own work. So, in short, people want their data out there, they want it augmented and they want it mashed up, but there are subsets of the data that have specific non-academic uses and their 'integrity' can be questioned in legal and other contexts so caution should be exercised. Of course every constructed element of archaeological knowledge and its attendant discourse can be deconstructed and critiqued according to various theoretical frameworks, however when you are representing a developer or a council in a public enquiry such critiques may not be as effective as they are in the lecture theatre. This may sound like cynicism or 'real politick' but archaeologists in the HE and vocational sector have to be aware of the real structural constraints imposed at the interface between archaeology and the legal, commercial and political world.
The good news is that pushing the data out there may help to change peoples perception of the rigidity and authority of that data and in turn democratise the past. It is impossible to predict what the results of a broadcast approach to this data might be, so much that has already happened with regard to social changes catalysed by information technology was unpredicted by the technical theorists and social pundits that it would be hubris to think we can predict how perceptions of the past might alter with open access to archaeological data, but my hunch is that it will be both radical and invigorating for the discipline.
I also think that broad organisation led programmes that might look elite of restrictive and intend to find "sophisticated ways of orchestrating diverse webs services for particular purposes at developer/sysadmin level" start a process that will lead to the user friendly APIs you mention, sooner rather than later. Ultimately all archaeological users drawing on open data, augmenting it, sharing it and personalising it seems to be the goal, but the truth is that data sharing and integration based on SOA at the organisation level is still taking it's first steps. In addition, there is no over-arching strategic body that directs all archaeological data holders towards a particular objective (nor should their be), this means that the we are likely to be living in mixed data economy for quite some time.
information, mashup and who has access?
Stuart, I also remember the comment Vince Gaffney made during the Edinburgh workshop. It was a reaction to a comment that went along the lines of archaeological data being not as important as, for instance, medical data, simply because people would not die as a result of misinterpretation (Bosnia and other places where people died over different interpretations of history show that, as Vince stressed, this is not always true). Personally, I do believe that this is even more reason to make our voices heard, but this is sometimes easier said than done - especially as it takes place in, as you say, a radically changing information environment that is transforming whole societies.
Talking about society beyond academia: How do institutions such as the ADS and English Heritage deal with the wider public and its interest in their data, especially in the context of user enriched content and mashups? Institutions can provide authentication and authority for their members and can negotiate access to data and rules for that, but what about informal groups and individuals? Are there already some models in place for granting giving the public permission to interact with and change it? Even Wikipedia has started to impose stricter rules on who can edit articles (see Can German engineering fix Wikipedia?).
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Torsten Reimer
http://www.methodsnetwork.ac.uk
Access to information and user enriched content
The last question you raise there is an interesting one. In essence, the Community Archaeology Forum is user-led, and allows contributors not only to create their own pages and upload content, but also to both comment on and ‘correct’ the work of others is they so wish. This site is not designed to be a final data repository, so issues of users altering primary data are not so relevant here. Nonetheless, we have had one or two interesting examples of users commenting on the work of others.
Of course, this introduces various knock-on issues, such as how users contributions are monitored, what extent of interaction with content posted by others is permitted, and what happens when disputes emerge. CAF has not raised these issues as of yet, but as email discussion lists and forums demonstrate elsewhere (and of course Torsten’s example of Wikipedia), they will eventually emerge. We have terms and conditions governing contributions, but these are quite general and really anyone can register with CAF and start changing content if they so wish.
Dan Hull
www.britarch.ac.uk
re: Access to information and user enriched content
I am not sure if there is a simple answer to these problems. Part of it may be to trust the users to solve such problems. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done - you need a critical mass of users so that vandalism of, let's say, wiki articles actually gets spotted and can be taken care of. And you need your community to be active enough so that rules can be agreed on by more than just a minority. This may need some guidance too or at least a structure to be built in the software/website to allow users to do it on their own.