Conclusions from a Pilot Archaeological Data Literacy Program

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Data Literacy Program (DLP) of the Alexandria Archive Institute/Open Context ran from late 2020 to 2025 with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mellon Foundation. This paper summarizes insights gained from the program, whose goal was to widen and diversify community engagement with cultural heritage data. The paper evaluates the many ways the program cultivated archaeological data literacy through freely available online open education resources and direct education in the form of guest lectures, workshops, nontraditional publications, and conference presentations. This analysis demonstrates a need for more programs in archaeological data literacy as well as further protocols for the evaluation of methods for assessing quality and accessibility for online accessible educational resources in archaeology broadly. The paper concludes by advocating for more work, research, and publication in pedagogy tailored to archaeological data literacy. It stresses the need for new pedagogical pathways and research that broaden the archaeology skills taught to learners to regularly incorporate archaeological data literacy. Such work will meet the needs of the discipline as more aspects of archaeology pivot to data-oriented work that currently requires learners to acquire skills through nontraditional means and continuing education rather than through traditional archaeology programs.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53974