Events and Activities
| The staff of the Alexandria Archive Institute works to communicate and build collaborations with the professional community and public. Please check here to learn of AAI participation in events, speaking engadgements, and meetings, or use our RSS-feed by subscribing to it with a service like Bloglines. |  |
| Latest News: Eric Kansa awarded NEH Digital Humanities Fellowship | |
| February 27, 2008 | Eric Kansa Eric Kansa, co-founder and former Executive Director of the Alexandria Archive Institute, is one of seven winners of the 2008-2009 Digital Humanities Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). NEH Digital Humanities Fellowships support individuals pursuing advanced research or other projects in the humanities that employ digital technology. Eric, who is now Executive Director of the Information and Service Design Program at UC Berkeley's School of Information will use this grant for the project "Accessing and Presenting Open Source Cultural Heritage Collections." The grant will support students from the School of Information to develop technologies around the Open Context data publication system. |
| Recent Activities : | |
| November 30, 2007 | Open Archaeology Prize
Scholars from UC Berkeley swept the Open Archaeology Prize competition, held at the 2007 meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). One of a series of award competitions around “open archaeology” led by the Alexandria Archive Institute and funded primarily by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, this particular Open Archaeology Prize targeted members of ASOR, a long-standing organization of archaeologists conducting research in the Near East. The winners, who were selected based on their project’s scholarly merit, potential for reuse in research or teaching and availability on the web in a free and reusable format, were announced last week at ASOR’s annual meeting in San Diego. First prize for a Senior Scholar was awarded to the team led by Ruth Tringham (Professor, Department of Anthropology) and Noah Wittman (Program Manager, ) for their website “Remixing Çatalhöyük” . First prize for a Junior Scholar was awarded to Catherine Foster (PhD student, Department of Near Eastern Studies) for her project “Household Archaeology and the Uruk Phenomenon: A Case Study from Kenan Tepe, Turkey”. A second prize of $200 in books, co-sponsored by the David Brown Book Company, was awarded to Justin Lev-Tov (Statistical Research, Inc.) for his project “Hazor: Zooarchaeology”. CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS. |
| November 1, 2007 | The Nov-Dec 2007 issue of Educational Technology magazine is an entire special issue dedicated to "Opening Educational Resources". A series of articles in this issue highlight open educational models, including OpenCourseWare, Connexions and a piece on Open Context called "Open Content in Open Context", co-authored by Sarah Whitcher Kansa and Eric Kansa. Click here to download the article. |
| October 16, 2007 | Open Context An article in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette entitled "Internet Fuels Global Learning Community" highlights the benefit of open educational technologies to global learning. It discusses numerous initiatives aimed at facilitating access to educational material and interaction between individuals. The article states "In field after field, the Internet is breaking down classroom walls and giving students and researchers unparalleled access to data and one another." Open Context is mentioned along with the major information sharing initiatives arXiv.org and PubMed Central. See the article at the following link: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07289/825636-298.stm |
| October 9, 2007 | Sarah Kansa The AAI announced today the launch of the Open Archaeology Prize, to be awarded to a member of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) at the upcoming meeting in San Diego (Nov 2007). The Open Archaeology Prize is awarded for the best online, free resource on archaeology developed by an ASOR member. Projects can be data, photos, video, slides, etc. The only stipulation is that they be freely available online for creative reuse. The competition is sponsored by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the David Brown Book Company. Follow this link to the competition announcement and guidelines. |
| April 2007 | The Society for Historical Archaeology's new open access "Technical Briefs" series just published a short peer-reviewed article about Open Context. The article discusses recent moves toward open access in scholarly communication, and looks at Open Context and its role in working toward "open data" in archaeology. Click here for the same article in printer-friendly .PDF format. |
| April 2007 | Eric Kansa ArchaeoInformatics.org,
a consortium of five institutions working toward a
cyberinfrastructure for archaeology has just made an in
depth presentation about Open Context available. The
presentation introduces Open Context and why it is a
significant advance for data sharing in archaeology, and how
it may illustrate a valuable approach for data sharing in
many other 'small science' disciplines.
|
| April 2007 | AAI Staff Please join us for an event at the Society for American
Archaeology Conference in Austin, Texas on Friday, April
27 (7 - 8 PM, Room 410, Austin Hilton). We will be
celebrating “Open Archaeology” with free sushi, friendly
conversation, and a chance to network with other researchers
working to reform and enhance communications in our
discipline.
If you are working on an Open Access project in archaeology, this is a great chance to let an interested community know about your efforts. Please contact us (contact@alexandriaarchive.org), and send a few (1-4) PowerPoint slides about your efforts. We'll incorporate them into a presentation that will be looping in the background while we munch on some sushi! |
| March 2007 | AAI Staff Through our long-term collaboration with the UCLA / University of Manchester Domuztepe Excavations, Open Context will shortly be featured with other ground-breaking social science and humanities research at UCLA. On Thursday, May 10th, UCLA's Institute for Digital Research and Education will host an event, "Countries, Cultures, Communication:Digital Innovation at UCLA" celebrating innovative research using digital technologies. Open Context will be among the projects to be showcased. |
| February 2007 | AAI Staff Eric Kansa will travel to India to participate in a conference organized by the Global Heritage Fund and Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. He will discuss open access and open licensing solutions for communicating world cultural heritage and introduce new web-based data publishing tools for Open Context. |
| February 2007 | AAI Staff The AAI is happy to announce the release of its winter newsletter detailing recent developments and accomplishments. Major highlights of this newsletter include:
Click here to access the newsletter! |
| 9 Jan 2007 | AAI Staff San Francisco, CA - The Alexandria Archive Institute (AAI), a non-profit organization building tools for open access to world cultural heritage via the Internet, is delighted to announce a continued and expanded partnership with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (http://www.hewlett.org) . As one of the Hewlett Foundation Education Program’s Open Educational Resources projects, the AAI has developed Internet tools and addressed incentives for scholars to openly share the primary research data. Past awards from the Hewlett Foundation have supported the AAI’s development and implementation of Open Context, an online, integrated database for global cultural heritage content (http://www.opencontext.org). With this most recent grant of $250,000 from the Hewlett Foundation (in support of general operating activities) the AAI will move into a new phase, that of promoting the creation and use of Open Educational Resources. To this end, the AAI will use Open Context as an open-sourced platform to disseminate field research, museum collections, and other cultural heritage media. Convenient Web-based access to such resources will make significant contributions for both instruction and research. The AAI will further promote access to scholarship by organizing a series of Open Archaeology Prize competitions at national conferences over the next two years. The AAI looks forward to collaborating with the Hewlett Foundation to promote open access in the scholarly community. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation makes grants to help solve social and environmental problems. For more information, please visit http://www.hewlett.org. For more information about the AAI, please visit http://www.alexan driaarchive.org. For questions about using or publishing with Open Context, contact Sarah Kansa, Assistant Director, The Alexandria Archive Institute, skansa@alexa ndriaarchive.org. |
| Nov 2006 | Sarah Kansa leads a discussion on how scholarly communication is in the midst of an important transition toward increased openness, access, scope and diversity. The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) recently called upon university counsels, boards of trustees, and provosts "to provide aggressive support for the principles of fair use and open access, and to promote awareness and use of Creative Commons licenses." The Junior Scholars Committee with the help of the Alexandria Archive Institute will host the Lunch. We will discuss these changes and how junior researchers can best position themselves to profit from this important shift toward open scholarship. We will also launch the "Junior Scholar Open Archaeology Prize", a new initiative to build awareness of open access research and enhance the prestige and community recognition of open scholarly communication. |
| Nov 2006 | The International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ)
and the
AAI announced winners of the first
“Junior Researcher Open Zooarchaeology Prize”. Five
prominent zooarchaeologists reviewed all eleven entries and
have determined the following winners, based on the
conference papers' scholarly merits and their potential for
reuse in research or teaching.To encourage the widest
possible dissemination and reuse of this scholarship, all of
the entries are licensed under open Creative
Commons. copyright licenses. |
| Oct 2006 | AAI Staff The AAI has been contracted to help a new NEH funded initiative to publish UC Berkeley excavation results from Nineveh in Open Context, the AAI’s open access data sharing system. The goal of this project, led by David Stronach and Eleanor Wilkinson, is to create a comprehensive open-access resource of all of the excavation results, including field data, images, and relevant scholarly information about the history and archaeology of Iron Age Nineveh. |
| August 2006 | AAI Staff The AAI is supporting an open expert panel discussion for the upcoming "Preserve America Summit" that will be held in October of 2006. The expert panel will discuss issues relating to national historical preservation policy and how best to structure the US role in international efforts at historical and cultural heritage preservation. This discussion is open to all and is available under the open terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license. To view the discussion, please click here. |
| July 2007 | The AAI is pleased to join iCommons on a program to explore how the global digital commons can shaped to best meet the needs and concerns of indigenous peoples and indigenous cultural heritage. The AAI will help bring together multiple stakeholders who will shape indigenous knowledge ethical, licensing, and other policy recommendations. Please check back us for updates on the status of this project. |
| June 2006 | The AAI will be represented at the iCommons Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Eric Kansa will participate in a panel discussion that aims to explore more fair and equitable frameworks for sharing cultural heritage and traditional knowledge. |
| June 2006 | AAI Staff The International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ) and the Alexandria Archive Institute have teamed up to create BoneCommons, an open access internet-based forum for the archaeozoological community. BoneCommons facilitates communication between ICAZ members by providing a place for them to "meet" online. ICAZ members can post questions, have discussions, and upload photos, charts, papers, and references. |
| May 2006 | AAI Staff The SAA Executive Staff has approved the blog "Digging Digitally" as a tool to facilitate Digital Data Interest Group (DDIG) discussions. DDIG members can use this blog to share news and announcements about their programs and activities. Hopefully, DDIG members will post suggestions on developing data sharing standards, intellectual property frameworks, policies, and other issues. DDIG members are also invited to use this weblog as a way to share links to individuals, projects, programs and organizations. |
| May 2006 | The founding organizers (Keith Kintigh and Dean Snow) of the new Society for American Archaeology's Digital Data Interest Group (DDIG) chose Eric Kansa to act as the group's volunteer "convener". This role includes: serving as a point of communication between DDIG and the SAA leadership, as well as facilitating discussions and fostering collaborations between DDIG members and other researchers. |
| May 2006 | AAI Staff Beta-launch of Open Context, an integrated data sharing system with museum reference collection and field archaeological documentation. Thanks to several researchers, including the Domuztepe team, Justin Lev-Tov, Denise Carruthers, and Paul Goldberg, and Richard Meadow Open Context is now available for general public use and evaluation. We look forward to gaining feedback on usability, tools, and reporting of bugs(!). |
| April 2006 | Whose Bones are Those? Human and Animal Processing in the "Death Pit" at Domuztepe, a Halaf Settlement in South-Central Turkey A paper Sarah Kansa presented with Suellen Gauld (Santa Monica Community College), Elizabeth Carter (UCLA) , and Stuart Campbell (University of Manchester) at the SAA conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This paper discusses a large and enigmatic deposit of heavily processed human and animal bones recovered at Domuztepe, Tuekey (Late Neolithic). Much of the primary data in this paper is accessible in Open Context |
| April 2006 | AAI Staff Toward a Cyber-infrastructure for Archaeology: Tools and Incentives Public forum held to discuss digital data sharing challenges, including conceptual, technological, and incentives. Society for American Archaeology Annual Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico. |
| April 2006 | ‘Some Rights Reserved’ and Bio/Cultural Heritage Presentation given in the Traditional Knowledge panel discussion at the Yale Law School- Information Society Project's Access to Knowledge Conference. New Haven, Connecticut. |
| April 2006 | Data Integration with ArchaeoML and Tagging Presentation (read by David Schloen) on combing ArchaeoML and folksonomy systems for archaeological data integration. Computer Applications in Archaeology Conference, Fargo, North Dakota. |
| Jan 2006 | Sarah Kansa went to Phoenix, Arizona as an invited participant on a multi-university collaborative project, headed by Keith Kintigh (ASU) and funded by the National Science Foundation, seeking to encourage better data sharing in archaeology. Sarah demonstrated Open Context and represented the ICAZ Database task-force in discussions centering on the ASU’s project goals of developing a standard “ontology” for zooarchaeology. |
| Jan 2006 | AAI Staff Test launch of "Open Context" a web-browser accessible portal to explore ArchaeoML structured content. (Click here to explore) |
| Dec 2005 - Jan 2006 | Launch of ArchaeoCommons and support of the 2006 Society for Historical Archaeology conference in Sacramento. ArchaeoCommons, an AAI sponsored group, provided digital services for the 2006 SHA Conference. (Click here to explore) |
| Nov 2005 | Jeanne Lopiparo discussed AnthroCommons in the plenary session, “The Health of Scholarly Communication in the Discipline,” at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association. AnthroCommons was identified by NCA conference organizers as an example of how innovative digital technologies might be utilized to encourage faster, better and cheaper publication in academia. |
| Nov 2005 | Launch of AAI's digital support services for the International Council for Archaeozoology's conference in Mexico City (2006). The AAI is providing online conference registration, e-commerce, and web-development services. In addition, the AAI will provide ICAZ members with a service, BoneCommons developed from AnthroCommons, that will enhance the research and educational value of the 2006 conference by enabling open access to conference presentations. |
| Oct 2005 | Publication of "Protecting Traditional Knowledge and Expanding Access to Scientific Data" in the International Journal of Cultural Property, Vol. 12, Num. 3. (Click here to download a self-archived version)This paper, coauthored with Jason Schultz (EFF) and Ahrash Bissell (Duke), discusses incentive issues for sharing field research as well as potential licensing strategies to better recognize the interests of cultural heritage stakeholders. |
| Sept 2005 | Publication of "A community approach to data integration" (Geosphere Vol. 1, Num. 2). This paper discusses the ArchaeoML data structure, its application, and theoretical value. |
| Sept 2005 | Presentation at the "Advancing the Effectiveness and Sustainability of Open Education" conference in Logan Utah. Click here to view the presentation. Click here for the pod cast. |
| June 2005 | AAI Staff Demonstration of ArchaeoML-based databases for the Microcosms Project, a system-wide survey of University of California of material collections. |
| March 2005 | AAI Staff Turning Data Into Knowledge: Moving Primary Field Data to an Open Knowledge Commons (Forum at the SAA Annual Meeting), Salt Lake City, UT. |
| Nov 2004 | AAI and Creative Building a "Cultural Heritage Commons", Incentives and Equity Discussions on the applicability of "some rights reserved" frameworks for traditional knowledge and cultural heritage with intellectual property experts, indigenous rights advocates, scholars, Creative Commons, and the Internet Archive. Meeting hosted by the Alexandria Archive Institute, San Francisco, CA. |
| Sept 2004 | AAI Staff Hewlett Foundation Open Content. (Meeting), Menlo Park, CA. |
| July 2004 | Eric Kansa, Executive Director Digital Preservation and Access: Building a Future for the Past. Lecture presented to the Livermore Rotary Club, Livermore, CA. |
| June 2004 | Sarah W Kansa, Assistant Director Goddesses, Ancestor Cults, and the Origins of Civilization Lecture presented to the Metropolitan Club, San Francisco, CA. |
| May 2004 | Eric Kansa, Executive Director Intellectual Property, Cultural Heritage and Open Dissemination Meeting hosted by the Alexandria Archive Institute, Conference room of Deloitte and |
| May 2004 | Eric Kansa, Executive Director A Cultural Commons and the Past: Intellectual Property and Archaeology. Lecture presented to the Congress of Cultural Atlases: The Human Record, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA. |
| May 2004 | Eric Kansa, Executive Director A Future for the Past: Stewardship, Access, and Digital Archaeology. Lecture presented to the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA. |
| April 2004 | Eric Kansa, Executive Director Digital Documentation in Context: ArchaeoML and Scalable Databases for Publication. Lecture presented at the Digital Documentation Workshop, Computer Applications in Archaeology Conference, Prato, Italy. |
| April 2004 | Eric Kansa, Executive Director Open Knowledge and Heritage: Moving the Past to the Cultural Commons. Lecture presented at the Reuters Digital Vision Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. |
| Sept 2003 | Eric Kansa, Executive Director The Silk Road Network of Ancient Bactria and Digital Networks of Today. Lecture presented to the Silk Road Foundation Lecture Series, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. ( |
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