Open Archaeology Prize

The Open Archaeology Prize a series of competitions sponsored by the Alexandria Archive Institute, which promote the development and use of open educational resources in archaeology and related disciplines. The Open Archaeology Prize aims to enhance community recognition of open scholarly communication. Past competitions include the Junior Researcher Open Zooarchaeology Prize and the 2007 - 2009 ASOR Open Archaeology Prizes (see below).

Winners of the 2009 ASOR Open Archaeology Prize competition were announced on November 20, 2009 at the annual ASOR meeting in New Orleans.

First prize ($500) was awarded to the West Bank and East Jerusalem Archaeological Database Project. The data was a result of a research project authored by Prof. Rafi Greenberg (Tel Aviv University) and Adi Keinan (University College London) with logistical and financial support from the Israeli Palestinian Archaeology Working Group (IPAWG), which was organized by Ran Boytner (UCLA/USC) and Lynn Swartz Dodd (USC). The purpose of the research portion of the IPAWG project was to develop a database of surveyed and excavated archaeological data from work done in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967. Much of this is being made available for the first time in English and many data records are being released into the public domain for the first time at all. This constitutes a scholarly and public resource that is widely available and widely searchable, either through the Internet or through library databases. These data are being made available to the public through the University of Southern California Digital Library. The entire database file itself will become downloadable for scholars (or developers or the military or anyone who needs to plan around ancient sites and wants to use their own GIS tools).

Second prize ($200 in books, co-sponsored by the David Brown Book Company) was awarded to the online publication of digital content from Brown University excavations at Petra's Great Temple from 1993 - 2006. This extensive corpus of over 123,000 linked items includes over 3000 images. All of this has been viewed over 200,000 times since its online publication in the Open Context system. The online publication includes descriptions of excavated contexts, related architectural features and remains, a small finds catalogue, zooarchaeological analyses, and associated digitized maps, plans, drawings and photographs. Over the past year, the digital publication expanded to include analyses of glass and coin artifacts. Additional datasets related to this corpus are forthcoming, including analysis of figurines recovered and analyzed during the Brown University work at the site. The Petra Great Temple Excavation is one of a number of projects available in Open Context, a system that offers a highly generalized approach to data sharing and data publication. The Petra Great Temple Excavation corpus serves as an exemplar for more comprehensive publication of excavation results than possible through print publication alone. Its primary intended purpose is to complement the printed publication series on the Great Temple by providing researchers with the full corpus of materials analyzed in the project, organized by context, and browseable through sophisticated search tools. Publication in Open Context also makes the results of the Petra Great Temple project easier to reuse in subsequent analyses because a Creative Commons Attribution license waives most copyright restrictions and because all data and media can be retrieved in machine-readable formats via powerful web services.

These two prizes reflect very different yet complementary approaches to data publication and sharing. The Petra Great Temple corpus represents a rich and in-depth resource for individuals interested in this one site, the Nabatean culture, and the Classical Mediterranean world. In contrast, the West Bank and East Jerusalem Archaeological Database Project provides invaluable information required for heritage stewardship, but also relevant to a greater breadth of chronological interests. The two projects, thus, represent exemplars of data sharing in breadth and depth. The complementary nature of these approaches is best illustrated by the interoperability enabled by releasing machine-readable data on the Web, such that these two datasets can be readily aggregated together and even combined with other data sources. By sharing machine-readable archaeological data on the Web, these prizewinners help to lay the foundations for a powerful information infrastructure that future researchers can build upon.

The ASOR Open Archaeology Prize competition is sponsored by the Alexandria Archive Institute, promoting the development and use of open educational resources in archaeology and related disciplines. The competition aims to enhance community recognition of open scholarly communication and receives generous support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David Brown Book Company and the American Schools of Oriental Research.

Winners of the 2008 ASOR Open Archaeology Prize competition were announced on November 21, 2008 at the annual ASOR meeting in Boston. The printed prize announcements can be found on page 31 of the Winter 2008 ASOR newsletter.

First prize ($500) was awarded to the Abzu web site, led by Charles E. Jones, Head Librarian at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University and Research Associate, The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Launched in 1994, Abzu collects and manages open access scholarly material relating to the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world, including the rich corpus of ETANA Core Texts, which are available for free for noncommercial teaching and research. In addition to standard search functions, Abzu provides several different ways to track recently entered material, such as news feeds, a clip blog and a widget. It also allows for the re-presentation and re-formatting of material indexed in it in the continuing series "AWOL - The Ancient World Online", beginning at the Ancient World Bloggers Group Blog. Abzu is self sustaining with selection and editorial control having been integrated into the workflows of the editor at the Research Archives, Oriental Institute, the Blegen Library at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and at the Library of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.

Second prize ($200 in books, co-sponsored by the David Brown Book Company) was awarded to the Badè Museum of Archaeology web site, led by Aaron Brody (Pacific School of Religion). The Badè Museum’s web site was recently overhauled to allow for virtual outreach to a limitless audience, helping educate beyond the brick-and-mortar walls of the Museum's galleries, and bringing transparency to the Museum’s holdings. The web site provides access to reusable content from archaeological excavations at Tell en-Nasbeh, conducted by WF Bade in the 1920s and 1930s under the auspices of Pacific School of Religion. The new web site provides digital versions of the contents in the Museum’s exhibits, overviews of research projects and facilitates the ordering of traveling exhibit materials. By openly licensing all content with Creative Commons licenses, the Bade team has ensured that these free and open resources can be downloaded for reuse by anyone. The photographs and short movies are of particular interest, and Aaron informs us that many more resources will be coming on line in the near future.

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 awards around “open archaeology” 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 in November at ASOR’s annual meeting in San Diego.

First Prize, Senior Scholar

First Prize, Junior Scholar

Runner Up

Open Context Updates

The Alexandria Archive Institute continues technical development on Open Context and the Penelope Data Importer. Our current build of both systems is intended to test interface designs and features.

New Interface Features:

(1) Citation information for each item, to copy or automatically send to Zotero

(2) Summary tools for multiple project variables

(3) Faceted browsing in Open Context

(4) RESTful web services

Features under Development:

(1) Simple steps for self-publishing using Penelope

(2) Custom styling and branding for different organizations/communities

(3) Symantec tagging

(4) Data export