Guest Author: Kathy Couturier, Cultural Resource Manager/Archaeologist

tDAR is used by Avon Park Air Force Range (APAFR) as a safe place to store digital documents, images, and other data outside of the cumbersome Department of Defense (DoD) IT system.  When we have new contracts at APAFR we have to send them our past survey work (34 years) which is impossible using the DoD system.  Giving a contractor access to our records, all in one spot, is convenient, safe and easy for both APAFR and the CRM firm doing the investigation for us parties.

Another advantage of using tDAR is as a back-up system for the DoD system.  If my records are wiped out for whatever reason, I can go to tDAR and pull my records for a fresh start with very little effort.

And finally, one of the key advantages of tDAR is other archaeologists can get a glimpse of the research going on at this facility, and request access.  We have 34 years of survey work which is not available to the general public, but could be a great asset to other professionals and professional institutions.  Without tDAR archives they might not be aware this work was even done.

For the 3^rd year in a row, the Center for Digital Antiquity (Digital Antiquity) collaborates with The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) to publish, make accessible, and preserve the abstracts and presentations from the Annual Meeting of the SAA. Working with SAA, Digital Antiquity staff have uploaded to tDAR all the abstracts for the symposia and presentations that were part of the recent SAA annual meeting in Vancouver.

If you were a presenter at the 2017 SAA meeting you can uploaded your presentation and supporting data to tDAR at no cost.  The symposium and presentation abstracts are already uploaded and in tDAR.  Promote your research and presentations, help other researchers find and cite your SAA presentation by making it available today!  Steps on how to upload your presentation can be found here, for your convenience.

Note that a similar arrangement exists for presentations for the past two SAA annual meetings, 2015 San Francisco and 2016 Orlando. You still can add your presentations made at either of these meetings in the same manner.

In March of this year, Digital Antiquity and the SAA renewed and updated the formal agreement between them to promote good practice in the care, curation, preservation, and use of digital data. The new agreement expands the SAA membership categories for which annual “no cost” uploads of files to tDAR are available, while also increasing the number of file uploads from 3 to 10.  Now, in addition to  student members being eligible for the uploads, SAA members who are retirees, members of Tribal Historical Preservation Office programs,  and members from countries that qualify for “discounted membership rates” will receive this additional benefit of  SAA membership.

These new benefits for SAA members in the above listed categories of SAA allow individuals to upload up to 10 files (up to 100 MB) per membership year at no-charge to them.  We encourage members to take advantage of this opportunity to preserve and promote their work for the purpose of education and re-use by other archaeologists.  Our common goal with SAA is to create a wealth of discoverable, accessible, and useful data for the archaeological research community.

When you are ready to take advantage of these exciting benefits please email membership@saa.org to receive your SAA membership benefits voucher.  At Digital Antiquity, we look forward to preserving and protecting your archaeological information for re-use in new investigations and research.

As we make our final preparations for the Society for American Archaeology’s 82^nd Annual Meeting, excitement is building for the event and the presentations we have planned for the conference.  There are numerous ways to engage with the Digital Antiquity team in Vancouver.  Stop by our booth (#213) in the exhibitor’s hall Thursday through Saturday, 9:00AM to 5:00PM to test drive tDAR and win a prize, enter our drawing for a digital preservation package, or speak to one of our staff about your digital archiving challenges.  You can also learn more about tDAR by attending one of our presentations throughout the week (see below).

Thursday March 30^th, 2017

 

Symposium: “METHODS AND MODELS FOR TEACHING DIGITAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND HERITAGE”

Room: East Meeting Room 8 (VCC)

Time: 8:00 AM–11:00 AM

Francis P. McManamon – “Online and In-Person Professional Training for Archaeological Data Management and Digital Curation, ” 9:00 AM

 

Forum: “METADATA AND DIGITAL MANAGEMENT IN ARCHAEOLOGY TODAY”

Room: East Meeting Room 4 (VCC)

Time: 1:00 PM–3:00 PM

Francis P. McManamon, discussant

 

 Symposium: “FRISON INSTITUTE SYMPOSIUM: THE FUTURE OF “BIG DATA” IN ARCHAEOLOGY”

Room: East Ballroom C (VCC)

Time: 1:00 PM–5:00 PM: 4:15

Keith Kintigh, Katherine Spielmann, K. Selçuk Candan, Adam Brin and James DeVos – “Data Integration in the Service of Synthetic Research,” 4:15PM

 

Friday March 31^st, 2017

 

Forum: ”BEYOND DATA MANAGEMENT: A CONVERSATION ABOUT “DIGITAL DATA REALITIES”

Room: East Meeting Room 5 (VCC)

Time: 8:00 AM–10:00 AM

Adam Brin, panelist

 

Poster Session: “ADVANCES IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHOD AND THEORY”

Room: East Exhibit Hall B Poster Entrance (VCC)

Time: 10:30 AM–12:30 PM

Leigh Anne Ellison – “Digital Archiving for Archaeological Projects,” location  191-i

 

 Forum: “WHAT GOOD IS SECONDHAND DIGITAL DATA?” (Sponsored by Student Affairs Committee) Room: East Meeting Room 4 (VCC)

Time: 1:00 PM–3:00 PM

Francis P. McManamon, moderator

 

Saturday April 1^st, 2017

 

Workshop (currently sold out): “TAKING CARE OF YOUR DIGITAL DATA – DEVELOPING GOOD DIGITAL CURATION HABITS FOR STUDENTS”

Room: Georgia B (H)

Time: 09:00 AM–10:30 AM

Leigh Anne Ellison, workshop leader

 

Safe travels, and we look forward to seeing you in Vancouver soon!

With less than 1 month left for Advanced Registration at the 82^nd Annual SAA Meeting, the Center for Digital Antiquity (Digital Antiquity) is prepping for our trip to Vancouver where we will be holding two workshops this year: “Best Practices for Digital Data Management and Curation” and “Taking Care of Your Digital Data – Developing Good Digital Curation Habits for Students.”  We encourage archaeologists, both students and practitioners alike, to join us for one or both of our workshops as we cover a wealth of knowledge on the importance of data management, preservation, and use of digital archaeological data.

Register now, as part of the SAA Annual Meeting registration, for the 4-hour workshop: “Best Practices for Digital Data Management and Curation,” led by Francis P. McManamon and Leigh Anne Ellison, scheduled for Wednesday 29 March, 1 to 5 pm.  The workshop will cover ways of organizing digital files for economical, effective data management.  In addition, workshop attendees will learn methods and tools to incorporate good digital data management practice into standard procedures and workflow for academic and CRM project and research procedures.  Participants will be introduced to types of digital data and information repositories that are available and where they can browse, access, and download archaeological documents, data sets, and images. The workshop will include a “hands-on” exercise during which participants will create a metadata record and upload a document, image, or data set file to tDAR (the Digital Archaeological Record) repository managed by Digital Antiquity. Participants should bring a personal computer and file to upload to the workshop to take part fully in this exercise. Only 25 spaces are available for this workshop and a number already have been claimed, register soon to guarantee a space.

A more condensed workshop for SAA Student members is scheduled for Saturday, 1 April from 9 to 10:30AM.   This workshop: “Taking Care of Your Digital Data – Developing Good Digital Curation Habits for Students,” led by Leigh Anne Ellison, will describe how to integrate good digital data management habits into current research workflows to ensure easy access to data and research results long into the future.  The workshop will emphasize strategies that can be employed when planning for new projects, as well as ways to introduce digital data management into ongoing or completed research projects that initially lack a digital archiving strategy.  There is no cost for student members to sign up for this workshop, but advance registration is required.

Registration for both events is limited so be sure to register for them as soon as possible!  We look forward to seeing you there!

The Center for Digital Antiquity is excited to welcome Rachel Fernandez as the newest member of the Digital Antiquity team as our Digital Data Curator. Ms. Fernandez recently relocated from University of Colorado at Boulder to join our group at Arizona State University.

With an interest in landscape archaeology and GIS applications, Rachel has conducted fieldwork in several sites across the Mediterranean. In the U.S., Rachel has worked on cultural resource surveys, public assistance grants, and GIS applications for areas affected with natural disasters during her tenure with FEMA. Rachel holds a Master’s degree in Classical Archaeology from the University of Colorado Boulder and a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Classics from the University of Florida.

We are excited for the experience and fresh perspective that Rachel brings to the table and cannot wait to see how her skill set will continue to advance tDAR’s mission and goals.