Near Eastern Cultural Heritage in an Open Context: The Domuztepe Excavations and Digital Data Sharing for the Field Sciences

UCLA College of Letters and Science, Humanities Division

Primary contact
Elizabeth Carter
Professor
Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
(310) 206-5474
carter@humnet.ucla.edu

Additional project researchers

Eric Kansa, The Alexandria Archive Institute
Sarah Whitcher Kansa, The Alexandria Archive Institute

Project description

Open Context is a flexible, open access, Internet publishing tool for field data and media (images, maps, videos). It hosts diverse research, including archaeological fieldwork and museum collections. Open Context currently showcases UCLA’s excavations at Domuztepe, an 8000-year-old village in Turkey. In 2006, users representing 80 countries accessed this collection over 20,000 times.

Open Context makes it easy to publish, find, use, and compare results from diverse projects. It offers easy citation, integration with other publishing systems, and community participation through "tagging" and discussion. It also protects field research from irreplaceable loss by making comprehsnsive data publication, digital archiving and global sharing easy and barrier-free. Flexible copyright licenses allow others to build upon this research while insuring that scholars receive proper credit for their contributions.

The excavations are a joint project of UCLA and the University of Manchester. Open Context is developed by the Alexandria Archive Institute, with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, making grants to help solve social and environmental problems. The Alexandria Archive Institute develops Internet tools and incentives for scholars to openly share primary research data. Funding is also provided by Donald and Doris Fisher and the Joukowsky Family Foundation.

Project video