No abstract

Research e-infrastructures, digital archives and data services have become important pillars of scientific enterprise that in recent decades has become ever more collaborative, distributed and data-intensive. The archaeological research community has been an early adopter of digital tools for data acquisition, organisation, analysis and presentation of research results of individual projects. However, the provision of e-infrastructure and services for data sharing, discovery, access and (re-)use have lagged behind. This situation is being addressed by ARIADNE, the Advanced Research Infrastructure for Archaeological Dataset Networking in Europe. This EU-funded network has developed an e-infrastructure that enables data providers to register and provide access to their resources (datasets, collections) through the ARIADNE data portal, facilitating discovery, access and other services across the integrated resources. This paper describes the current landscape of data repositories and services for archaeologists in Europe, and the issues that make interoperability between them difficult to realise. The results of the ARIADNE surveys on users' expectations and requirements are also presented. The main section of the paper describes the architecture of the e-infrastructure, core services (data registration, discovery and access) and various other extant or experimental services. The ongoing evaluation of the data integration and services is also discussed. Finally, the paper summarises lessons learned, and outlines the prospects for the wider engagement of the archaeological research community in the sharing of data through ARIADNE.

Since the first ESFRI roadmap in 2006, multiple humanities Research Infrastructures (RIs) have been set up all over the European continent, supporting archaeologists (ARIADNE), linguists (CLARIN-ERIC), Holocaust researchers (EHRI), cultural heritage specialists (IPERION-CH) and others. These examples only scratch the surface of the breadth of research communities that have benefited from close cooperation in the European Research Area. While each field developed discipline-specific services over the years, common themes can also be distinguished. All humanities RIs address, in varying degrees, questions around research data management, the use of standards and the desired interoperability of data across disciplinary boundaries. This article sheds light on how cluster project PARTHENOS developed pooled services and shared solutions for its audience of humanities researchers, RI managers and policymakers. In a time where the convergence of existing infrastructure is becoming ever more important – with the construction of a European Open Science Cloud as an audacious, ultimate goal – we hope that our experiences inform future work and provide inspiration on how to exploit synergies in interdisciplinary, transnational, scientific cooperation.

The e-depot for Dutch archaeology started as a project at Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) in 2004 and developed into a successful service, which has ever since been part of the national archaeological data workflow of the Netherlands. While continuously processing archaeological datasets and publications and developing expertise regarding data preservation, various developments are taking place in the data landscape and direct involvement is necessary to ensure that the needs of the designated community are best met. Standard protocols must be defined for the processing of data with the best guarantees for long-term preservation and accessibility. Monitoring the actual use of file formats and the use of their significant characteristics within specific scientific disciplines is needed to keep strategies upto-date. National developments include the definition of a national metadata exchange protocol, its accommodation in the DANS EASY self-deposit archive and its role in the central channelling of information submission. In an international context, projects such as ARIADNE and PARTHENOS enable further developments regarding data preservation and dissemination. The opportunities provided by such international projects enriched the data by improving options for data reuse, including the implementation of a map-based search facility on DANS EASY. The projects also provide a platform for sharing of expertise via international collaboration. This paper details the positioning of the data archive in the research data cycle and presents examples of the data enrichment enabled by collaboration within international projects.

No abstract