If We Build It, Will They Come? An Infrastructural Perspective on Evaluations of Digital Data Reuse in Archaeology
(2025) ARKM21 20251Archaeology
- Abstract
- The growing use of digital tools in archaeological practice has led to a proliferation of data. Concerns regarding how to best manage and store these significant volumes of archaeological data have been addressed by the development of digital research data infrastructures which function to ensure the long-term preservation of archaeological information and make it available for reuse. Recent Open Access movements and the establishment of conceptual guidelines for better data management practices, best exemplified by the FAIR principles, have served to improve the democratization and accessibility of data towards more efficient reuse. Despite this, there is a limited understanding about whether or not this archaeological data is actually... (More)
- The growing use of digital tools in archaeological practice has led to a proliferation of data. Concerns regarding how to best manage and store these significant volumes of archaeological data have been addressed by the development of digital research data infrastructures which function to ensure the long-term preservation of archaeological information and make it available for reuse. Recent Open Access movements and the establishment of conceptual guidelines for better data management practices, best exemplified by the FAIR principles, have served to improve the democratization and accessibility of data towards more efficient reuse. Despite this, there is a limited understanding about whether or not this archaeological data is actually being reused, to what extent, and the impact it may have on how we create knowledge about the past. Thus far, most research on the subject has centered on identifying and improving technical barriers to reuse rather than tracing explicit reuse practices and their implications for archaeological epistemologies. Guided by a theoretical framework of infrastructures as ecosystems –that is, living, evolving sociotechnical constructions composed of shifting agential networks–this thesis seeks to extend our knowledge regarding archaeological data reuse by investigating potential strategies for monitoring and evaluating the reuse of data held in digital research infrastructures. The analysis draws on four case studies representing primarily Swedish-based digital archaeology research infrastructures and semi-structured interviews conducted with representatives of each infrastructure. The results of this study demonstrate that while the evaluation of data reuse is regarded as important and valuable not only for infrastructural sustainability but also for understanding how data reuse affects archaeological practice and knowledge production, several factors constrain our ability to do this practically. These factors include an ambiguous understanding of the concept of reuse, prevailing data management policies which prioritize ‘technosolutionism’, and lagging expectations regarding archaeological information work within the discipline that make it challenging to realize the full affordances of digital infrastructures. It may be that more time is necessary for digital infrastructures to mature for us to attain a greater estimation of how their data are reused. In the meantime, perhaps a reflective resorting of priorities is necessary in which the technical and the social are given equal emphasis in the development of digital research infrastructures, although this may be easier said than done. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9198381
- author
- Tremblay, Louise LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- ARKM21 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Data reuse, reuse evaluation, digital infrastructures, ecosystems approach, Sweden, digital archaeology, Open Access, FAIR principles, sociotechnical constructions.
- language
- English
- id
- 9198381
- date added to LUP
- 2025-09-09 14:29:50
- date last changed
- 2025-09-09 14:29:50
@misc{9198381,
abstract = {{The growing use of digital tools in archaeological practice has led to a proliferation of data. Concerns regarding how to best manage and store these significant volumes of archaeological data have been addressed by the development of digital research data infrastructures which function to ensure the long-term preservation of archaeological information and make it available for reuse. Recent Open Access movements and the establishment of conceptual guidelines for better data management practices, best exemplified by the FAIR principles, have served to improve the democratization and accessibility of data towards more efficient reuse. Despite this, there is a limited understanding about whether or not this archaeological data is actually being reused, to what extent, and the impact it may have on how we create knowledge about the past. Thus far, most research on the subject has centered on identifying and improving technical barriers to reuse rather than tracing explicit reuse practices and their implications for archaeological epistemologies. Guided by a theoretical framework of infrastructures as ecosystems –that is, living, evolving sociotechnical constructions composed of shifting agential networks–this thesis seeks to extend our knowledge regarding archaeological data reuse by investigating potential strategies for monitoring and evaluating the reuse of data held in digital research infrastructures. The analysis draws on four case studies representing primarily Swedish-based digital archaeology research infrastructures and semi-structured interviews conducted with representatives of each infrastructure. The results of this study demonstrate that while the evaluation of data reuse is regarded as important and valuable not only for infrastructural sustainability but also for understanding how data reuse affects archaeological practice and knowledge production, several factors constrain our ability to do this practically. These factors include an ambiguous understanding of the concept of reuse, prevailing data management policies which prioritize ‘technosolutionism’, and lagging expectations regarding archaeological information work within the discipline that make it challenging to realize the full affordances of digital infrastructures. It may be that more time is necessary for digital infrastructures to mature for us to attain a greater estimation of how their data are reused. In the meantime, perhaps a reflective resorting of priorities is necessary in which the technical and the social are given equal emphasis in the development of digital research infrastructures, although this may be easier said than done.}},
author = {{Tremblay, Louise}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{If We Build It, Will They Come? An Infrastructural Perspective on Evaluations of Digital Data Reuse in Archaeology}},
year = {{2025}},
}