Web platform for editing, publication and long-term archiving of fieldwork data in regional sciences

• Applicants: Reiner Diedrichs; Professor Dr. Thede Kahl; Uwe Rosemann
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 277236902

In area studies and their sub-disciplines, a large amount of heterogeneous research data is being produced. The most serious problem in the management of this data is the incompatibility between conventional types of publication and the formats of video and audio data and 3D pictures in which field research data have recently been compiled in increasingly confusing multitude. Since conventional print outlets are not an option for the publication of much of this data, and the existing approaches have not yet been standardized, access to this data and consequently its circulation in academic publications are hampered immensely. The establishment of private archives with multimedia data, practised by many authors and often released via global internet platforms, is not suitable for academic purposes, as they are neither secured consistently nor documented scientifically and do not provide sufficient possibilities of searching for specific data. The tools developed by the humanities are just as insufficient for our interdisciplinary approach due to their limited subject-specific orientation. The main goal of the project is therefore to make the video, audio and 3D picture material collected by area specific field research as easily accessible and quotable to a wide range of researchers as conventional data is.

• DFG Programme: Research data and software (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)