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 w… Show more
“…Datasets have traditionally not been considered standalone products or genres, and consequently they have not been defined and prepared as fieldwork output (Huvila 2016). Data provenance and process information may exist in the documentation produced during, for example, an archaeological excavation, but it is likely to be scattered across fieldwork diaries, context sheets, notes on maps and drawings, site photos, and the field reports (Huvila, Sköld, and Börjesson 2021;Huvila 2006). Metadata and process information in attached readme-files, table definition files, or in the dataset itself (e.g., supplementary information in column headers) may be sparse or non-existent.…”
Section: Metadata and Paradata Generation By Extractionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…A key step towards facilitating extended and more purposeful data reuse is to better understand and assess the process of data creation. In this article, we focus on paradata, a subset of contextual information that describes data creation and manipulation processes and their underpinnings, which is often left undocumented in structured dataset descriptions but commonly is implicitly present and, at least to a competent reader, to varying degrees identifiable in the data itself (Huvila 2020a;Huvila, Sköld, and Börjesson 2021). Paradata, like descriptions of methods and tools used to produce data, is particularly interesting because it is often central to making and communicating assessments of data reliability and an important facilitator of productive and efficient data reuse (Faniel et al 2013).…”
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.
“…Datasets have traditionally not been considered standalone products or genres, and consequently they have not been defined and prepared as fieldwork output (Huvila 2016). Data provenance and process information may exist in the documentation produced during, for example, an archaeological excavation, but it is likely to be scattered across fieldwork diaries, context sheets, notes on maps and drawings, site photos, and the field reports (Huvila, Sköld, and Börjesson 2021;Huvila 2006). Metadata and process information in attached readme-files, table definition files, or in the dataset itself (e.g., supplementary information in column headers) may be sparse or non-existent.…”
Section: Metadata and Paradata Generation By Extractionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…A key step towards facilitating extended and more purposeful data reuse is to better understand and assess the process of data creation. In this article, we focus on paradata, a subset of contextual information that describes data creation and manipulation processes and their underpinnings, which is often left undocumented in structured dataset descriptions but commonly is implicitly present and, at least to a competent reader, to varying degrees identifiable in the data itself (Huvila 2020a;Huvila, Sköld, and Börjesson 2021). Paradata, like descriptions of methods and tools used to produce data, is particularly interesting because it is often central to making and communicating assessments of data reliability and an important facilitator of productive and efficient data reuse (Faniel et al 2013).…”
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.
“…Couper, 2000 versus metadata that describes data; Pomerantz, 2015) has gained prominence especially in survey research (Goodwin et al, 2017) and cultural heritage visualisation communities (Bentkowska-Kafel & Denard, 2012), and more recently, for instance, in archaeology (e.g. Huvila et al, 2021). A key aspect of both provenance metadata and paradata, underlined in the recent literature (e.g.…”
Section: Documenting Processes and Practices: On Overviewmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…A key aspect of both provenance metadata and paradata, underlined in the recent literature (e.g. Huvila et al, 2021;Michetti, 2017;Sköld, 2017), is that they can take many different forms and be embedded in the data itself-especially when the perspective to information-related processes and practices is extended beyond interactions pertaining to specific technical information objects to their broader stakeholder contexts.…”
Section: Documenting Processes and Practices: On Overviewmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Greenberg et al, 2021;Huvila, 2020;Sköld, 2017;Thomer et al, 2018;Trace, 2020), others in the work stemming from science and technology studies (STS) and in the growing body of information science research that combines information and STS perspectives (e.g. Borgman et al, 2015;Borgman et al, 2019;Gregory et al, 2020;Huvila, 2016;Huvila et al, 2021). As a whole, it is, however, apparent that there is room for a higher degree of cross-fertilisation.…”
Section: Documenting Processes and Practices: On Overviewmentioning
Processes and practices-and in general, informational doings and their diverse constellations-are pertinent elements of the information landscape. This panel presents research on documentation and description of processes and practices in the information field addressing: 1) how different conceptualisations of processes and practices influence how they emerge as describable entities; 2) what different approaches to document and describe processes and practices exist and have been proposed in information science and technology research; 3) what aspects of processes and practices different documentation approaches capture, make visible and invisible; and 4) what novel insights from the current state-of-the-art research can be drawn to support practitioners in different areas of the information field, including knowledge organisation, information management, information literacy instruction, and development of information systems and services.
Research on how people look for and interact with information has a long history in the information field. The current literature has been repeatedly reviewed in earlier volumes of Annual Review of Information Science and Technology. In this review, we offer an overview of the research published in this area in the years 2016–2022 with a focus on the trends that have emerged in this period. We use the term “information behavior” as an umbrella for the research area interested in how people become informed and engage with information in diverse manners acknowledging that different researchers and subfields prefer other terms and frameworks, including information practices, information experience, and health information seeking, to name a few. We reviewed 1270 articles in the field published in the years 2016–2022 and identified seven emerging trends: The CoVID‐19 Pandemic, Diversity and Inclusion, Embodiment, Misinformation and Trust, Social Q&A Websites, Collaboration, and Information Creation. The reviewed literature and trends are discussed in relation to their significance for information, earlier review of information behavior research, and the long‐debated issue of theory‐driven versus atheoretical research in the field.
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