Making the LEAP: Linking E-Archives to Publication
A recent funding programme from the Arts and Humanities Research Council seeks to examine and enhance the deployment of information and communications technology across the academic community. This strategic initiative has recently awarded around £1,000,000 to twelve projects to ensure that the arts and humanities have the same opportunities as those in technology and science. Here Prof. Julian Richards describes one of these new projects that is offering small grants to help academics link electronic archives and publications.
Research Councils UK is one of many agencies to make recommendations recently about access to publicly-funded research. Its position statement was emphatic on where research outputs should end up: `Councils will make it a condition for all grants awarded from 1 October 2005 that a copy of all resultant published journal articles or conference proceedings ... be deposited in and/or accessible through [an open access digital] repository. This mirrors recommendations from the British Academy's policy review on E-resources for Research which called for responsible parties to support the `wide and ready access to research outputs and other research resources'.
This is good news for all those seeking to explore, exploit and promote online digital resources. For a number of years ADS and its sister e-journal, Internet Archaeology, have been developing new forms of electronic dissemination. We are therefore pleased to have been awarded a grant under the AHRC ICT Strategy Programme for a new project - Making the LEAP - which explores the relationships between digital archives and electronic publications.
The potential of linking publications to archives has been discussed but there are too few examples. Archaeology and cognate cultural heritage disciplines provide an ideal test-bed for such explorations: the use of ICT is relatively advanced and they provide a rich variety of data. They have the institutions to make a success of the project. ADS is recognised around the world as a model for digital archiving, while Internet Archaeology was among the first peer-
Linking digital archives to electronic publications: in Internet Archaeology 17, Allison et al draw are able to support their conclusion about the social relevance of artefact distribution in roman forts by linking to interactive data sets that are archived and available from the ADS. (http://intarch.ac.uk)
reviewed e-only journals in the humanities. It has considerable expertise in electronic publication, a wide subscriber base and is now approaching its tenth anniversary.
Over the next two years, four exemplars will be developed that illustrate ways in which electronic publication can provide broad access to research findings, and can also make underlying data available in such a way so that readers are enabled to "drill down" seamlessly into online archives to test interpretations and develop their own conclusions. The papers will be published in Internet Archaeology, and the linked archives will be curated within the AHDS.
Julian Richards
jdr1york.ac.uk
Publication grants of £4000 are available to assist with the development of exemplars. If you would like to be considered for one of these grants, see the project web page at: http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/projects/leap/ or email Dr Jon Kenny (jk18@york.ac.uk) or Professor Julian Richards (jdr1@york.ac.uk).
For more on the AHRC's ICT programme see:
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/ict/
For more on the RCUK consultation on access see:
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/access/
