| 1. |
- Börjesson, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
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Information needs on research data creation
- 2022
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Ingår i: Information research. - : Högskolan i Borås. - 1368-1613. ; 27:special issue
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction. Researchers’ data related information needs are growing. This paper reports the findings of a study with archaeologists and cultural heritage professionals focussing on data reuse related meta-information needs.Method. Interviews with (N=)10 archaeologists and cultural heritage professionals. Analysis. Qualitative coding and content analysis.Results. Four types of paradata needs (data on processes, e.g. data creation) are identified, including 1) scope, 2) provenance, 3) methods and 4) knowledge organisation and representation paradata. Knowledge organisation and representation paradata has been least explored both in research and practises so far. The findings point to a need to develop the understanding of the needs and means of documentation of knowledge organisation and representation.Conclusions. The findings contribute to the data literacy of researchers producing and using data descriptions, and to the study of how paradata can be created and used. Further, the findings indicate that distance-to-data is a significant parameter in determining whether information needs are continuous or discrete. Further, the most likely type of reuse should guide the level and type of paradata. Finally, the findings underline that in spite of the comprehensiveness of available meta-information, it will be incomplete. Complementary means — including collaboration with data creators and meta-information extraction approaches — are needed to increase information reusability.
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| 2. |
- Börjesson, Lisa, 1985-, et al.
(författare)
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Re-purposing Excavation Database Content as Paradata : An Explorative Analysis of Paradata Identification Challenges and Opportunities
- 2022
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Ingår i: KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies. - : University of Victoria Libraries. - 2398-4112. ; 6:3, s. 1-18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although data reusers request information about how research data was created and curated, this information is often non-existent or only briefly covered in data descriptions. The need for such contextual information is particularly critical in fields like archaeology, where old legacy data created during different time periods and through varying methodological framings and fieldwork documentation practices retains its value as an important information source. This article explores the presence of contextual information in archaeological data with a specific focus on data provenance and processing information, i.e., paradata. The purpose of the article is to identify and explicate types of paradata in field observation documentation. The method used is an explorative close reading of field data from an archaeological excavation enriched with geographical metadata. The analysis covers technical and epistemological challenges and opportunities in paradata identification, and discusses the possibility of using identified paradata in data descriptions and for data reliability assessments. Results show that it is possible to identify both knowledge organisation paradata (KOP) relating to data structuring and knowledge-making paradata (KMP) relating to fieldwork methods and interpretative processes. However, while the data contains many traces of the research process, there is an uneven and, in some categories, low level of structure and systematicity that complicates automated metadata and paradata identification and extraction. The results show a need to broaden the understanding of how structure and systematicity are used and how they impact research data in archaeology and in comparable field sciences. The insights into how a dataset’s KOP and KMP can be read is also a methodological contribution to data literacy research and practice development. On a repository level, the results underline the need to include paradata about dataset creation, purpose, terminology, dataset internal and external relations, and eventual data colloquialisms that require explanation to reusers.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Börjesson, Lisa, 1985-, et al.
(författare)
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The politics of paradata in documentation standards and recommendations for digital archaeological visualisations
- 2021
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Ingår i: Digital Culture & Society. - Bielefeld : Transcript Verlag. - 2364-2114 .- 2364-2122. ; 6:2, s. 191-220
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Digitalisation of research data and massive e!orts to make it findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable has revealed that in addition to an eventual lack of description of the data itself (metadata), data reuse is often obstructed by the lack of information about the data- making and interpretation (i.e. paradata). In search of the extent and composition of categories for describing processes, this article reviews a selection of standards and recommendations frequently referred to as useful for documenting archaeological visualisations. It provides insight into 1) how current standards can be employed to document provenance and processing history (i.e. paradata), and 2) what aspects of the processing history can be made transparent using current stan- dards and which aspects are pushed back or hidden. The findings show that processes are often either completely absent or only partially addressed in the standards. However, instead of criticising standards for bias and omissions as if a perfect description of everything would be attainable, the findings point to the need for a comprehensive con- sideration of the space a standard is operating in (e.g. national heri- tage administration or international harmonisation of data). When a standard is used in a specific space it makes particular processes, methods, or tools transparent. Given these premises, if the standard helps to document what needs to be documented (e.g. paradata), and if it provides a type of transparency required in a certain space, it is reasonable to deem the standard good enough for that purpose.
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| 5. |
- Huvila, Isto, Professor, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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A Fieldwork Manual as a Regulatory Device : Instructing, Prescribing and Describing Documentation Work
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of information science. - : Sage Publications. - 0165-5515 .- 1741-6485.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Research on how archaeological fieldwork manuals, a sub-category of methods handbooks, regulate research documentation is limited. Qualitative content analysis of 25 English-language archaeological field manuals from the early 1900s to 2010s showed that they instruct how to describe the documentation work, prescribe practices and workflows, and function as often pre-coordinated descriptions of work. A manual forms a ‘working space’ that is sometimes adopted as such by following the detailed advice given in some of the texts but likely more often used as a more general point of reference. The fact that many manuals do not provide exact recipes for the fieldwork as a whole means that they function as comprehensive representations and documentation (paradata) of actual fieldwork practices only when read in parallel with field documentation.
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| 6. |
- Huvila, Isto, Professor, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Archaeological information-making activities according to field reports
- 2022
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Ingår i: Library & Information Science Research. - : Elsevier. - 0740-8188 .- 1873-1848. ; 44:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Accounts of how scholarly information is produced are crucial for understanding and using the information yet they are often criticized for being incomprehensive or even non-existent. This article aims to increase the understanding of how scholarly information-making is conceived and documented by information-makers. By analyzing how a set of archaeological field reports describe different aspects of the information-making activities (cf. Activity Theory) pertaining to the research documented in the reports, the study suggests that scholars might have a tendency to focus on reporting tools, outcomes and physical location of activities while descriptions of especially rules/norms, community factors and division of labour are rare and expected to be known tacitly. The findings suggest also that the descriptions of information-making activities become comprehensible in relation to their related activities. Therefore, an increased emphasis on explicating their underpinning social factors and how activity systems and their elements link to other activity systems could improve the comprehensiveness of documentation and decrease the need of tacit contextual knowledge.
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| 7. |
- Huvila, Isto, Professor, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Choreographies of Making Archaeological Data
- 2021
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Ingår i: Open Archaeology. - : Walter de Gruyter. - 2300-6560. ; 7:1, s. 1602-1617
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A lot of different concepts have been utilised to elucidate diverse aspects of archaeological practices and knowledge production. This article describes how the notion of choreography can complement the existing repertoire of concepts and be used to render visible the otherwise difficult to grasp physical and mental movements that make up archaeological work as a practical and scholarly exercise. The conceptual discussion in the article uses vignettes drawn from an observation study of an archaeological teaching excavation in Scandinavia to illustrate how the concepts of choreography, choreographing, and choreographer can be used to inquire into archaeological work and data production. In addition to how explicating physical, temporal, and ontological choreographies of archaeological work can help to understand how it unfolds, the present article suggests that a better understanding of the epistemic choreographies of archaeological, scientific, and scholarly work can help to unpack and describe its inputs and outputs, the data it produces, what the work achieves, and how it is made in space and time.
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| 8. |
- Huvila, Isto, Professor, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Citing methods literature : citations to field manuals as paradata on archaeological fieldwork
- 2022
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Ingår i: Information research. - : Högskolan i Borås. - 1368-1613. ; 27:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: This article investigates how researchers cite methods literature, and to what extent and how these citations could function as a form of paradata i.e., descriptive data on research processes.Method: Citations to two prominent field manuals were retrieved using Scopus; full-texts were obtained for analysis.Analysis: Descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis were used.Results: Field manuals are cited both for compliance and contrast to clarify procedures and actions, understanding of what is considered conventional and extra-ordinary, to elucidate work processes in broader terms, and to explain concepts and what is common disciplinary knowledge. Even if literature use seems indicative of work procedures, a citation to a method cannot necessarily be considered as direct evidence of what was done in reality.Conclusions: Citations to field manuals can function as a complementary form of paradata to other information on how archaeological work has been conducted. However, rather than forming a standalone corpus of evidence, they can be expected to function best if combined with other indicators. A citation to a specific methods text can be indicative of certain patterns of work or presence of a shared scope of relevance with other works citing the same text.
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| 9. |
- Huvila, Isto, Professor, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Data Papers as Documentation of Research Processes and Practices
- 2023
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Ingår i: IST23 Conference. - : Association for Information Science & Technology.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper reports preliminary results of an on-going study of data papers, a fairly recently introduced type of journal paper designed for documenting and instigating the publishing of research data sets. The aim of the paper is to provide new knowledge on how research processes and practices are described in a set of archaeological data papers selected for analysis. The findings point to a diversity of strategies of how research processes are documented. Explaining factors include the type of data and research where the dataset is stemming from, cross-disciplinary influences from fields outside of archaeology, and the original purpose of data collection and whether it appears that the data was collected for sharing and publishing. The findings point to several possibilities to develop author guidelines for data papers and insights into why and what some types of datasets appear as easier to document than others.
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| 10. |
- Huvila, Isto, Professor, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Documenting information making in archaeological field reports
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Documentation. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 0022-0418 .- 1758-7379. ; 77:5, s. 1107-1127
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PurposeSharing information about work processes has proven to be difficult. This applies especially to information shared from those who participate in a process to those who remain outsiders. The purpose of this article is to increase understanding of how professionals document their work practices with a focus on information making by analysing how archaeologists document their information work in archaeological reports.Design/methodology/approachIn total 47 Swedish archaeological reports published in 2018 were analysed using close reading and constant comparative categorisation.FindingsEven if explicit narratives of methods and work process have particular significance as documentation of information making, the evidence of information making is spread out all over the report document in (1) procedural narratives, (2) descriptions of methods and tools, (3) actors and actants, (4) photographs, (5) information sources, (6) diagrams and drawings and (7) outcomes. The usability of reports as conveyors of information on information making depends more on how a forthcoming reader can live with it as a whole rather than how to learn of the details it recites.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is based on a limited number of documents representing one country and one scholarly and professional field.Practical implicationsIncreased focus on the internal coherence of documentation and the complementarity of different types of descriptions could improve information sharing. Further, descriptions of concepts that refer to work activities and the situation when information came into being could similarly improve their usability.Originality/valueThere is little earlier research on how professionals and academics document and describe their information activities.
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