Paradata in Documentation Standards and Recommendations for Digital Archaeological Visualisations

Abstract

Digitalisation of research data and massive efforts 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 datamaking 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 standards 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 consideration of the space a standard is operating in (e.g. national heritage 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.

Upcycling historical data collections. A paradigm for digital history?

“…, 2020). This, in turn, has a negative impact on scientific transparency, interoperability and, ultimately, sustainability of HDCs (Börjesson et al. , 2020).…”

“…play a role in reinforcing the reflective approach that is central to research" (Barats et al, 2020). A comparable interest in ICPs can also be found in a variety of other disciplines, most importantly literary studies with the concept of paratext (Genette and MacLean, 1991;Genette, 1997;Ronald et al, 1992;Collins and Skover, 2010;Ciotti and Lin, 2016;Skare, 2021) and information science with the concept of paradata (B€ orjesson et al, 2020;Huvila, 2022). Both concepts have been adopted in the upcycling workflow that will be described in more detail below.…”

Will It Ever Be FAIR?

“…How we effectively archive data for reuse depends on the nature of the data product. The preservation of different file formats has been extensively covered within the field of digital preservation, as has the role of metadata (Börjesson et al 2020; Clarke 2015; Kansa et al 2019; McManamon et al 2017; Niven and McManamon 2011; Richards et al 2022; Snow et al 2006). We encourage readers to consider which of the following archaeological information and data they create or transact with that should adhere to the FAIR principles.…”

Re-purposing Excavation Database Content as Paradata

“…While the traditional role of metadata is to support resource discovery, more recent community-and discipline-specific standards for data description often aim to facilitate (re)use beyond mere retrieval. Such schemes incorporate descriptors requested in many of the previously discussed studies (e.g., Faniel, Frank, and Yakel 2019;Sobotkova 2018) on, for instance, provenance, collection methods, and quality assessment categories (Börjesson, Sköld, and Huvila 2021). For example, geographic information standards from the earlier-used Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) (n.d.) to the current ISO 19115-1:2014ISO 19115-1: (2014 contain categories explicitly intended to facilitate reuse.…”

“…Thus, knowing about sieving methods and equipment used in the field can be critical in deciding how to combine and compare fishbone datasets to understand aquatic environments (Olson and Walther 2007), but is likely insignificant for a researcher with an interest in, for example, settlement patterns. Since fixed metadata standards build on explicit and implicit assumptions about what things and processes the scheme should describe and for what purpose, a set standard inevitably has its limitations (Börjesson, Sköld, and Huvila 2021). Therefore, the need to find ways to generate intentionally purposed meta-and paradata based on topical user needs grows along with the ambition to make use of legacy data and use data across disciplinary boundaries.…”