Over the course of five years, the dataARC team successfully produced an infrastructure to support transdisciplinary research on human-environment interactions in the North Atlantic. In this infrastructure, individual datasets are much more discoverable and interoperable with other research. Most importantly, bringing together data from archaeology, historic documents, climate science, and the humanities, is likely to provoke critical reflection on current events, and can be a resource for resident communities who are being forced to adapt. Working towards a more holistic understanding of the long-term and present-day dynamics of this region requires linking not only datasets but the broader domain knowledge and conceptual models developed by multiple disciplines. Investing in shared online cyberinfrastructure provides an opportunity to build and reinforce these links and to further new research directions.
The dataARC cyberinfrastructure project was made possible by the collaborative research efforts of the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) and collaborators at research institutions across the US, UK, and Europe, and funded by two successful NSF awards (cyberNABO 1.0 and cyberNABO 2.0 – SMA 1519660 and 1637076). The project began with cyberNABO 1.0 (the exploratory phase) which involved assessing the NABO data landscape, evaluating the CI needs of the NABO research community, creating concept maps to semantically link diverse datasets, and developing a data discovery and visualization prototype. The current phase, cyberNABO 2.0, has successfully linked 15 critical datasets through standardized data management and handling practices and semantically-enabled mapping of the research concepts identified in phase 1. For more on how these datasets have been linked together please visit the Synthesis pages of the website.
The datasets in dataARC are diverse including subjects from the humanities to the environmental sciences, spanning thousands of years and vast geography including Iceland, Greenland, the United Kingdom, and Scandinavia. In the dataARC Search Tool, users can explore all the integrated datasets using temporal, spatial, keyword, and conceptual filter tools. Users also visualize data distribution temporally, spatially, and conceptually, which encourages people to explore new research directions and data from other disciplines.
Publications
Alexander, S. M., Jones, K., Bennett, N. J., Budden, A., Cox, M., Crosas, M., … Strawhacker, C.& Karcher, S. (2019). Qualitative data sharing and synthesis for sustainability science. Nature Sustainability, 1-8.
Buckland, P.I. & Sjölander, M. (2020). Approaches to Research Data Infrastructure for Archaeological Science.. Digital Heritage and Archaeology in Practice. Watrall, E. & Goldstein, L.. University Press Florida.. .
Palsson, G. and Opitz, R. (2019) DataArc: a case study using CIDOC CRM as an ontology for transdisciplinary research. In Niccolucci, F. and Richards, J. (2019) The ARIADNE Impact, ARCHAEOLINGUA FOUNDATION, Hungary. Publication link
Jones, K., Alexander, S. M., Bennett, N., Bishop, L., Budden, A., Cox, M., Strawhacker, C…. & Hardy, D. (2018). Qualitative data sharing and re-use for socio-environmental systems research: A synthesis of opportunities, challenges, resources and approaches. Publication link
Opitz, R., Strawhacker, C., Buckland, P., Cothren, J., Dawson, T., Dugmore, A., Hambrecht, G., Koster, W., Lethbridge, E., Mainland, I., Mcgovern, T., Newton, A., Palsson, G., Ryan, T., Streeter, R., Stade, E., Szabo, V. & Thompson, P. (2021) A Lockpick’s Guide to dataARC: Designing Infrastructures and Building Communities to Enable Transdisciplinary Research. Internet Archaeology 56. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.56.15
Strawhacker, C., Buckland, P., Palsson, G., Fridrikkson, A., Lethbridge, E., Brin, A., … & Dawson, T. (2015). Building cyberinfrastructure from the ground up for the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization introducing the cyberNABO Project. In 2015 Digital Heritage (Vol. 2, pp. 457-460). IEEE.
