Some additional projects to watch from the NEH awards list announced yesterday.

Items of interest from the April 2011 NEH Awards:

From Heritage Bytes:

Open Context is developing procedures for formalized archaeological data publication in conjunction with print publication. We are seeking scholars who are currently publishing their research and who would like to publish (and archive) the related data simultaneously in Open Context. Open Context will offer data publication for free in return for your feedback to help us improve the data publication process.

See the full post here.

I am putting this on my list of things to watch that include:

• The Archaeology of the Americas
• The ASCSA Publication Office
• Visible Past

This letter came out from Jeffrey T. Clark, the current Chair for CAA North America and Alyson Gill, a candidate for Membership Secretary. This letter outlines some of the changes in CAA for the future. Nick Ryan, for instance will not stand for re-election this year. He has held the Chair post since 1993 according to the archives of the general meetings. This is an exciting time for the CAA and even though I won’t be at the meeting this year I have sent in my proxy for votes. The letter from Clark/Gill is below with links to the attachments for proxy voting and the CVs of the candidates.

April 5, 2011

Dear CAA Colleague,

Over the last several weeks, there has been a lot of discussion within the CAA Steering Committee, and amongst a group of members, about the nature of CAA and its future.  What it boils down to is that we think CAA is in need of a number of changes.  Broadly speaking, these changes would make the organization operate in a more professional manner and with more openness.  The most active members of our group are: Axel Posluschny (Germany), Karsten Lambers (Germany), Philip Verhagen (Netherlands), Gary Lock (UK), Bernie Frischer (US), and us.  Others have been supportive in many ways, though we will not list them all.

CAA is now at an important crossroads with two offices being vacated.  Long-serving Chair Nick Ryan will not stand for re-election in Beijing.  Hans Kamermanns, who was recently elected as the newly created Publication Officer, is also stepping down.  Consequently, our group has submitted nominations for a slate of candidates for the upcoming elections at the Beijing CAA Annual General Meeting (AGM). These candidates, along with nominators and seconds, are:

•    Gary Lock – Chair, proposed by Philip Verhagen and seconded by Axel Posluschny
•    Axel Posluschny – Treasurer, proposed by Philip Verhagen and seconded by Gary Lock
•    Secretary – No nominee (currently, Guus Lange hold this office); endorsed
•    Alyson Gill – Membership Secretary, proposed by Axel Posluschny and seconded by Gary Lock
•    Philip Verhagen – Publication Officer, proposed by Axel Posluschny and seconded by Jeffrey Clark

We know all of these people and can vouch for their honesty, their strong engagement with CAA over the past years, and their strong desire to work to improve CAA as an organization and a conference.  Attached is a pdf with short CVs and statements regarding their view of the position.  We ask that you give strong consideration to voting for each of these candidates, if you are in a position to vote.

You are eligible to vote if you are a current CAA member, which means if you attended CAA 2010 in Granada (you are a member until after the AGM in Beijing), if you attend CAA in Beijing, or if you become a member without attending CAA Beijing (see, http://caa.leidenuniv.nl/caa_membership.htm).

If you will not be attending the Beijing AGM, you can vote by assigning your proxy to someone who will be in attendance.  If you do not know anyone attending, Axel Posluschny and Bernie Frischer have agreed to hold proxies for those who will be unable to vote in person but are in support of these candidates.  If you would like Axel, Bernie, or anyone else, to cast your vote, please fill out the attached proxy form and send it to Guus Lange (guus.lange@gmail.com) in an e-mail with the subject heading PROXY. You must also cc to your proxy (e.g., Axel Posluschny, posluschny@me.com, or Bernie Frischer, bernard.d.frischer@gmail.com) so that they have also have the form. Please note that it is important that you send your proxy forms as soon as possible.

All of the nominated candidates have agreed to support a platform that contains important proposed changes to the way CAA is organized and operates.  The most important thing is to bring these issues up for discussion, arrive at a set of concrete proposals, and bring them to the membership for further consideration and vote.  Among the proposals that we wish to bring forward for consideration are the following:
•    increasing the term of office to three years (currently it is just one)
•    establishing term limits for officers (e.g., two three-year terms maximum)
•    establishing an explicit set of duties and powers for each officer
•    allowing for a Secretariat to have a small staff to help organize the annual meeting, assist the officers in the performance of their duties, provide liaison with the Amsterdam University Press, keep the CAA website up to date, and assist with the activities of the various national branches of CAA
•    implementing the decision taken at a recent AGM to have the Amsterdam University Press handle production and publication of the CAA Proceedings (up to now, each group of local organizers has handled this itself)
•    instituting an active effort to expand membership
•    creating and maintaining an updated webpage that is reflective of the status of CAA as the leading organization for computer applications for archaeology and cultural heritage
•    developing a more comprehensive set of procedures and policies for conference organizers that will facilitate a well run conference.

By voting for these candidates you are not voting for any of these changes, only for officers who will bring them to the entire CAA membership for consideration, debate, and, ultimately, a vote.

So, if you attend CAA Beijing, please remember to attend the AGM on the afternoon of April 15, and we urge you to support any or all of candidates that we have presented here in order to bring about important changes in CAA.  We also hope that you will encourage any of your colleagues who are members to vote as well.

Thank you very much for your consideration of and help with this very important matter.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey T. Clark, Chair CAA North America
Alyson Gill, Candidate for Membership Secretary

 

PROXY FORM FOR CAA 2011

CVs candidates CAA2011

Metamorphoses: Co-referencing classical place data for the CLAROS Project
Sebastian Rahtz, Alexander Dutton

Being Formal and Flexible: Semantic Wiki as an Archaeological e-Science Infrastructure
Isto Huvila

Facilitating database content re-use for semantic feeds and mobile applications
Ian Johnson, Steven Hayes, Steve White

Semantic Technologies Enhancing Links and Linked Data for Archaeological Resources
Keith May, Ceri Binding, Doug Tudhope

A Digital Drawing Tool for Recording Excavations: the Nikon iSpace System
Geoffrey J. Avern, Wouter Franssens

New mapping function of archaeological information and its application in CHARDA-Xplore (CHinese ARchaeology DAtabase)
Dominic Hosner, Andreas Fleck, Mayke Wagner

New Digital Spaces for Philadelphia Archaeology
Glen Muschio

Documentation methods of archaeological records for further 3D GIS analysis
Undine Lieberwirth

Introducing Semantics – Pathways to Data Integration in Archaeology
Leif Isaksen, Kirk Martinez, Graeme Earl

The JISC Institutional Data Management Blueprint Project: Archaeological Implications
Graeme Earl, Hembo Pagi, Steven Johnston, Pam Wake, Michael Whitton, Kenji Takeda

Relational Database Implementation of CIDOC CRM to model interdisciplinary research
Gerald Hiebel, Klaus Hanke, Ingrid Hayek

Was it worth it? Experiences with a CIDOC CRM-based database
Ellen Jordal, Brit Hauge, Espen Uleberg

A multimedia system for storage, analysis and retrival of archaeological informationShuai Zhang, Huazhong Wang, Huaizhong Lin, Dongming Lu

An archaeological drawing method based on line drawing of 3D modelYingquan Shen, Mingquan Zhou, Guohua Geng

Data Integration and Exploration in the Online Cultural Heritage Research Environment (OCHRE)
John David Schloen

Digital Archaeological Excavation Information Protection and Application Framework
Changyu Diao, Dongming Lu, Yabo Dong, Huaizhong Lin

The Complete System of Digital Artifacts Preservation
Wuyang Shui, Mingquan Zhou, Zhongke Wu, Kang Wang, Xia Zheng

The Future of our Digital Past
Michael John Rains

Event-based archaeological registration principles
Peter Jensen, Casper Skaaning Andersen, Liv Stidsing Reher-Langberg

The research of The Display of The Historic Relics Migrations Based on G/S Model
Fang Miao, Dengxiang Xu, Lu Lin

e-Arch Archaeology Information System
Sihao Feng, Xiaohan Li, Tao Zhang, Jigen Tang, Shishan Niu

The Management of Three-Dimensional Cultural Relics Model
Jinjun Tan, Yachun Fan, Guohua Geng, Jing Guo, Zhe Shi, Yunpeng Pan

The World of Thucydides: from Texts to Artifacts and back
Matteo Romanello, Agnes Thomas

Digitalizing paper documentation – on the example of early Celtic settlement Altdorf “Am Friedhof” in Germany, in program ArcView
Julia Maria Chyla

Easy Recording System: solutions based on Web Free Apps databases
Bogdan Bobowski

From Scan to Scholarly Resource: a Greco-Roman Index for the Internet Archive
Brian Fuchs, Federico Boschetti, Darlington John

Our work at PARP:PS will be discussed at the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA 2011) conference in Beijing next week. I won’t be able to attend this year but our paper will be presented by Steven Ellis, director of PARP:PS. Our paper is titled “The ‘Paper-less’ Project: the use of iPads in the excavations at Pompeii.” Since it is only a 20-minute presentation we won’t be able to go into as much detail as I have on this blog but it has also allowed us to hit on some broader themes and reflect on the paperless project and its integration into our fieldwork.

One of the most important of these is our attempt to make sure that the introduction of this new recording system doesn’t overwhelm the trench supervisors. Our choices of software and methods were intentionally chosen to stretch the technological envelope without pushing the excavation team too much. In some cases this worked out well. As I have said before, the drawing software was the most difficult for them to learn, and we spent a lot of time training them on its use. The results were much better than expected and everybody seems to like the results. We chose the Pages software for the notebooks thinking that they wouldn’t need much training on the use of a word processor. The result was a little anemic, as they didn’t seem to want to illustrate their notebooks as much as they have in the past. I thought that having all of their excavation photos and plans available to them for insertion into the documents would have been obvious but none of the notebooks contained any images. Perhaps we need to have some more training sessions for Pages.

The schedule for the conference has been posted. I haven’t had much time to look at the other papers being presented, but I will soon. Steven Ellis has already pulled out the relevant Vesuvian area paper titles.