New year, new goals! With three months of 2024 completed, (and a bit more by the time this blog’s come out!) it’s time for the Data Literacy Program (DLP)’s quarterly report blog. There’s been a lot going on, so let’s summarize all that we accomplished in the first quarter of the year.
We set four goals to start 2024 off on the right foot. These included two presentations, one at the 2024 Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology in Oakland and the co-presentation of a NADAC workshop on “Diverse Learners and Diverse Media” (Feb 24, 2024) by Paulina and Sarah E. Miller of FPAN. Beyond that, we wanted to set broad goals to trace the arc of the rest of the program and share a preprint publication of A Glorious Mystery.
You can check out our blog about the SHA conference here if you want to hear about that great event. The co-presentation for NADAC was also awesome! It was a great chance to highlight how Data Stories work with diverse learners and leverage diverse media. The NADAC workshops are not shared publicly but you can read about the program and outcomes in their semester updates.
All our Data Stories work with diverse learners or media and, to demonstrate that, Paulina let the NADAC scholars to pick a Data Story to explore. That way, rather than try to talk about everything all at once, one Data Story illustrated the kind of work that goes into them. She walked through the website with all the Data Stories and provided a brief introduction of each. And, when polled, the scholars decided to learn more about Stop and Smell…the Material Culture?
Stop and Smell…The Material Culture is under revision right now.
Using Stop and Smell…the Material Culture?, Paulina explained how the DLP altered the language of “slow looking” in the Data Story to be inclusive of more senses and abilities, making it more explicitly available to diverse learners. We also make all Data Stories in diverse media, so Paulina highlighted that educators and learners can use Stop and Smell…the Material Culture? as both a fixed digital document and as mutable markdown code. In addition, Stop and Smell…the Material Culture? is in the revision stage. This means that we received community input, through peer review, on the resource and we’re using that to improve it. We do this to ensure Data Stories actually work in the way we expect as quality resources.
The revision stage is a great segue into our next goal! We revised and agreed on a broad plan for the program. This covers from the beginning of this year through the end of the program’s current funding. Sarah and Paulina chatted about the program and set a couple of broad goals during the SHA conference. These included wrapping up and publishing all the Data Stories that have significant work done with them already (like FAIR Finds and A Pun Goes Here, which are available for open peer review).
We got these Data Stories ready for preprints during the previous quarter though we only just shared that publicly!
With those mostly completed, we’re moving on to the Archaeological Data Literacy Practicum. We’ll be sorting out all the details of running that as a professional development workshop soon. This begins with defining the syllabus and then will move to organizing the logistics of the course. However, running the practicum this may take a bit longer as Paulina puts the final touches on her PhD.
Beyond the practicum, getting FAIR Finds and A Pun Goes Here ready for open peer review was a huge part of the last couple of months’ work. We’re excited that they are available for people to use, reference, and provide feedback on! Unfortunately, that meant that the DLP didn’t complete the last goal of getting A Glorious Mystery ready for peer review. However, we made good progress with it and it should be available in the next few months.
We accomplished a lot in the first quarter of the year and hope to keep the momentum. We’re excited to share the Data Stories we have sitting in storage, so be sure to keep checking into the AAI News for more updates and Data Stories throughout the year. And in the meantime, check out our published Data Stories and related works.
Image Credits: The first image is “AAI-OC_DataStoryPublished_Header-StopAndSmellTheMaterialCulture” by Paulina F. Przystupa from the DLP / CC BY-SA adapted images with attribution information forthcoming. This second image includes, on the right, the “FAIR Finds Header” by Paulina F. Przystupa from the Data Literacy Program (DLP) / CC BY-SA. It includes an adaptation of “FAIRFinds_FirstPage” and “fairfindssplash2” by L. Meghan Dennis also from the DLP, with attribution information forthcoming. On the left, is “A Pun Goes Here Header” by Paulina F. Przystupa from the DLP/ CC BY-SA. It includes an adaptation of “APunGoesHere_Hat” by L. Meghan Dennis with attribution information forthcoming and the “AAI reads logo” by Paulina F. Przystupa, which is an adaptation of an Adobe stock image.
