Please Note: Users and contributors to Open Context implicitly agree to abide by the terms and conditions of use.

Penelope Import Tool

Open Context is a free resource for the community to contribute, use, and comment on cultural heritage data. In order to simplify its use, the AAI has introduce d a web-based authoring tool for Open Context contributors. This data-weaving tool, called “Penelope”, enables individual researchers to publish their analytic data, notes, images, maps, and other types of content in the Open Context system. Penelope is now available as an “alpha” (testing) version tool. To use Penelope, please create an Open Context login by clicking here, and then follow the links to Penelope.

Submission Process

Those interested in contributing to Open Context can also submit data and needed explanatory documentation directly to the Open Context team. Please contact us at contact@opencontext.org if you are interested in contributing content. We will send you details on how to prepare your data for a quick upload to the system.

Contributions can be emailed to contact@opencontext.org, or mailed by post on a CD to:

The Alexandria Archive Institute
Attn: Open Context Contributions
125 El Verano Way
San Francisco, CA 94127

 

Acceptable Contributions

Everyone is welcome to explore, use and "tag" material in Open Context. However, in order to help protect threatened cultural heritage resources, we can only publish collections and orginal documentation from professional sources. Demonstration of official research or hertiage managment permits and/or other credentials (such as the award of a competitive grant) help identify content as professional. Contributions can come from an individual study or a collaborative team field project. Open Context also accepts data from professionally managed museum and other special collections, especially digital images that can be used for reference or teaching. All contributions should comply with the highest professional and ethical standards. Please indicate potentially sensitive information, such as site locations, to help insure that only appropriate content is made publicly available. For guidance, please refer to the Society for American Archaeology's Principles of Archaeological Ethics. To insure quality, all submitted material is subject to editorial review and evaluation by subject-matter experts prior to being released.

Some examples of content include:

• Raw data (spreadsheets & databases), images, and diary narratives from archaeological excavations
• Ethnographic documentation (images, notes, analytic data. All must be carefully prepared to comply with legal, privacy, and ethical obligations relating to human-subject research)
• Museum collection photos and object catalogues
• Catalogues and media related to reference collections

 

Copyright and Ownership of Content

Unlike the case with many professional journals, contributors retain copyright ownership over their contributions. That means contributors are free to publish their material through any other venue (journals, books, conference proceedings, etc.) that they see fit.

In order to maximize the value of Open Context content and to keep with our open access mission, we require all contributors to license their material with Creative Commons licenses. These licenses enable users to safely and legally use Open Context content without burdensome negotiation of copyright terms all while insuring that contributors are propery credited for their work.