Tag: meetings

Digital Antiquity Presents tDAR at Digital Humanities 2011

Posted on by Leigh Anne Ellison

On June 22, 2011, Director of Technology Adam Brin presented some of the new tools being developed to promote ongoing research using tDAR’s integration engine at Digital Humanities. Digital Humanities is the annual conference sponsored by the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO), which this year was held at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

The presentation, part of a paper session on topics ranging from Roman funeral spectacle to digital resource sustainability, highlighted the fact that tDAR is a tool for information access, a repository for preservation, and a research and practice resource. Each of these facets was visually explained in greater detail: information access through several key screenshots of uploaded resources and data input pages; preservation through a flowchart of how files and file formats are migrated and maintained.

The focus of the presentation demonstrated the new user interface and functionality built into the data integration tools.  tDAR’s data integration and mapping features enable archaeologist-friendly data synthesis and comparison for data sets within tDAR. These include a new drag-and-drop interface for data integration and the display of a pivot-table style summary of results when integration is complete.  After the presentation, a short video was shown in order to demonstrate to conference attendees the ease of using the tDAR interface.

We are looking forward to feedback from Digital Humanities attendees and from our readers. Let us know what you thought of the presentation and demo by sending us your comments and suggestions.

Digital Antiquity and tDAR at the SAA

Posted on by Leigh Anne Ellison

Digital Antiquity staff and collaborators were on hand in Sacramento at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA). At the Digital Antiquity booth in the Convention Exhibit Hall, staff demonstrated tDAR to visitors, answered their questions, and provided additional information. We thank all of you who stopped by to learn about tDAR, to sign up for Digital Antiquity eNews, or just to say hello. To those of you who couldn’t make it to Sacramento this year: you can still learn about tDAR by browsing existing content, registering in order to upload your own data, and joining the Digital Antiquity mailing list to receive the eNews.

Digital Antiquity staff also participated in three program sessions held at the SAA meeting. One of these, a SAA Forum, “Using the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) for Management and Research,” presented examples of using tDAR in specific archaeological projects. Another SAA Forum, “Planning for Archaeological Digital Data Management,” discussed how tDAR can be used to satisfy the the recently highlighted requirement for data management plans as part of NSF research proposals. A third session, a SAA Electronic Symposium, “Mortuary Practices in the American Southwest: Meta-Data Issues in the Development of a Regional Database,” demonstrated the basic work involved in creating a regional database (and its uses), as well as the value of a tool like tDAR for such a group of researchers.

We hope to see you next year in Memphis!