Opening Pandora's box? Archaeological data imperfection and their management, sharing, and reuse
Creators: name: Batlle-Baró, Sabina
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Archaeology
Archaeological data
Data imperfection
Data uncertainty
Open data

description: The benefits of opening archaeological data are multiple and broadly described in the literature. Among them, increased transparency, collaboration and reproducibility are all factors that can potentially help identify and even reduce data imperfection. However, at the same time, opening imperfect data could escalate this imperfection, and make it useless for others to reuse. In view of this situation, different questions arise: How should we document imperfection? How do we deal with imperfection when reusing archaeological data? Is imperfect data really reusable? Using as a basis the experiences and perspectives of Catalan Archaeology researchers collected in a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, we will approach the issues that arise around data imperfection when managing, sharing and reusing archaeological data. We will assess the implications of open data and data imperfection and explore the possibilities that open data can bring to the management of archaeological data imperfection, while trying to evaluate the impact data sharing and reuse can have to this same imperfection.
description: This research was supported by an FPI grant (Formación de Personal Investigador) given by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCINN) to the author, Sabina Batlle Baró (PRE2019-091286).
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