December 2012

Project Update: the Impact of the Archaeology Data Service: a study and methods for enhancing sustainability

We are now just over half-way through the project that commenced in February 2012 and will conclude in July 2013. We have successfully completed desk research and two surveys of ADS Users and Depositors respectively.

In November we held our community focus group and presentation of interim results at a workshop in York. The aims of the workshop were to seek stakeholder feedback on the emerging results, establish any change of perception of the ADS amongst participants as a result of the study, and seek their views on how the study results might be presented to the archaeological community and its funders.

Invitations were sent to a range of sector representatives and eleven delegates attended the workshop, of which four were from the Local Authority sector, three from National Authorities, one from Universities, one from the Commercial sector, one shared university/commercial sectors, and one from Publishing. It was an extremely valuable day and the feedback will help shape our final phase of dissemination of the study results and contribute to our final report.

We have recently made our project workshop presentation of interim/provisional findings from the study and our post-dissemination activity value perception report (a report of workshop participant feedback) available on the project webpage.

We are now working on the final weighting of the economic analysis with the aim of incorporating the latest results in presentations, posters and leaflets that can be presented and distributed at forthcoming events during 2013 including the International Digital Curation Conference, The World Archaeological Congress, and Computer Applications in Archaeology.

Digital Preservation Awards

The Digital Preservation Awards ceremony was held on Monday in London. Although suffering from a heavy cold it proved to be a very enjoyable evening.

For me the big take-away message from the event was the importance of JISC’s role as a funder of innovative digital preservation services and projects in the UK. Two out of three of the award winners had been established by JISC: a remarkable testament to its effectiveness in this field over the last decade.

Below is a photograph from the ceremony. Further information and a press release on the Awards can be found on the DPC website.

Digital Preservation Awards 2012 Ceremony