D8.1: Quantity of access offered

This deliverable describes the transnational access activities carried out during the third and fourth year of the ARIADNE project (2015-2016) within Work Package 8 (WP8) by the Digital Curation Unit, ATHENA RC (Greece). It describes the programme and objectives of these training activities, and the participants’ profiles and feedback. The first activity was a week-long Summer School, organized in Athens between 29 June and 3 July 2015 on “Emerging digital practices in archaeological research”, to enable researchers and professionals in archaeology to engage with cutting edge and emerging digital practices within archaeological research, ranging from new methods to capture, organise and curate archaeological resources and data to new approaches of archaeological interpretation and dissemination, mediated by digital infrastructures. The second activity, organised in collaboration with the Faculty of Information of the University of Toronto and the Department of Informatics of the Athens University of Economics and Business, was a week-long Summer School on the topic of "Digital curation of archaeological knowledge", conducted in Athens between 13 and 17 June 2016. Both summer schools attracted TNA scholars and other archaeological researchers of all levels of experience, from postgraduate students to professors, engaging them with aspects of the ARIADNE digital infrastructure based on their individual research projects and challenges of using digital methods, resources and tools. They both involved an international faculty complementing the local team of Digital Curation Unit experts, and consisted of two modules: a) a training school (three days), based on a combination of seminars and hands-on workshops, and b) an expert forum (two days), in which transnational access participants were invited to interact with experts on digital archaeological methods, datasets and curation on planning aspects of using digital archaeological infrastructures.

Thirteen researchers, attached to institutions from seven European countries, participated in the two summer schools as transnational access scholars, receiving bursaries of 1000 Euros to cover travel and subsistence costs. Participants reported that they benefited from new learning on digital archaeology methods and tools, resources and scholarly literature, collaboration and mentoring by experts, and application of new knowledge in planning and implementing their own research projects. They recommend broader dissemination and expansion of TNA actions, a broader methodological curriculum beyond instrumental tasks, more hands-on activities, and creation of an online community of interest among participants. Evaluation of the Athens summer schools demonstrates that they can be effective mechanisms not just for the instrumental use of existing tools and services, but also to reflect methodologically, and develop appropriate new approaches and tools able to support the effective capture, curation, use and re-use of digital archaeological datasets for archaeological inquiry, knowledge translation and professional management of archaeological resources, for the benefit of research, education and public use.