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Communicating ArchaeoGaming in a 2D System - Episode 4
65 Plays8 years ago
The panel discusses new and inventive ways to communicate their work in ArchaeoGaming. What's the best way to present data about gaming? Maybe write your own game? Create a video? Podcast about it? And is Academia ready for a shift away from traditional ink and paper forms of presentation and how can we help it along?
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Transcript
Future of Archaeological Publication
00:00:12
Speaker
Today's panel consists of Andrew Reinhardt, Megan Dennis, and Tara Copplestone. Today we're discussing what the future of archaeological publication looks like in light of archaeogaming becoming a field. How is the best way to present an argument when your argument is a video game? How do we keep track of these conversations across the wide world of the internet? What are the new best practices that we'd like to see put into play? And what could the brave new world of publishing look like if we opened it up a little bit?
00:00:24
Speaker
You are listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:46
Speaker
Get ready to roll initiative.
8-Bit Test Pit Campaign Introduction
00:00:48
Speaker
Everyone and welcome to the 8-Bit Test Pit main campaign. I am your GM, Sarah, and I am joined today by Megan Dennis, Andrew Reinhardt, and Tara Copplestone. How's it going, guys and ladies? Hello. Hello. Just for our listeners' information, Megan is slowly dying of the Black Plague that she got at some point overseas. So if she fades in and out, that's just letting you guys know ahead of time. But you can't catch it through the internet, so
Shift in Archaeological Publishing
00:01:17
Speaker
it's okay. Yes.
00:01:20
Speaker
So today we wanted to talk about different ways or new directions for the publication and the communication of archaeological data, especially archaeo-gaming data outside of a paper or a 2D format. So Andrew, you want to start us off with that?
00:01:37
Speaker
Sure. In my day job, I am not an archaeogamer, but an archaeological publisher. I've published for four years for the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and then have been the publisher of the American Numismatic Society for two years. And we're publishing archaeology of the ancient world in monographs and in journals and at the NS also in a magazine. And all of that is two dimensional. And
00:02:03
Speaker
as any archaeologist will tell you, archaeology is not a two-dimensional science. It is in 3D. It is also in 4D because you have the element of time that you're dealing with. And so when writing about archaeology in a monograph, you kind of capture the moment and you do some synthetic analysis. And that's really it. And I think that undercuts a lot of what archaeologists need to communicate to the readership, whoever that might be, the public or to their peers.
00:02:30
Speaker
And especially when you're talking about archaeo gaming, I mean, you're dealing with these kinetic, this kinetic media, you know, so you've got games that are happening in real
Limitations of Traditional Monographs
00:02:39
Speaker
time. They have motion, they have sound and visuals, most of them. So how do you actively publish on the archaeology of video games or of any kind of moving media that is outside the scope of the monograph? And that's something I've been trying to wrap my head around for a while. I'm not quite sure what the answer is.
00:02:57
Speaker
And to kind of jump on the end of that, like Andrew had on a really important point, which is that the monograph or like the kind of traditional ways that we publish structure information in like a very particular way. And when you move to something like games or even to like cinema or photography or to 3D modeling, these all also have like these very different ways. And with games, one of the things that is fascinating is that they have to be played. They can't just like
00:03:24
Speaker
They don't emerge into their form until they're interacted with. They're an active media form. So it's like there are certain things in games like you can make an argument in a very certain way and engage the player through co-participation in that argument that you simply cannot do in other forms. You can't make that argument in the same way in a paper.
00:03:44
Speaker
So it also offers these really interesting ways to make different types of arguments about different types of data. But part of the problem is that or part of the longstanding issue is that our academic institutions has been embedded into the textual media, specifically that of like the monograph or the journal article.
Historical Data Sharing Methods
00:04:02
Speaker
And so we think of that as being the way which data and science evolves and exists and how we should write these arguments. So how can we move beyond that? Or is it important to move beyond that is I guess the more pressing question. And I think it's interesting when we look at it this way that we consider that this view of how science and data are conveyed is it's old, but it's still relatively modern. There was a time when passing on
00:04:32
Speaker
information was a back and forth process when the idea was you actually stood up and debated what you were talking about, debated your ideas, debated your theories. And I think that sort of oratorial style is much closer in terms of experiential data sharing and experiential science. It's much closer to games than the current model of academic explanation, if that makes sense.
00:05:02
Speaker
It's in the moment and it's to do with that interaction between things rather than it just being like, here is an objective paper thing that you just consume and you impart that knowledge to the person. The other people are an active part of it. That's part of the end goal of doing that kind of traditional publication and the other is to satisfy some kind of requirement, whether it's satisfying
Non-Traditional Thesis Formats
00:05:27
Speaker
You know, something for your, your masters, your PhD or something for your tenure committee where the requirements are that you must publish a monograph or that you must publish X number of articles. And it seems to ignore other other routes of publishing this kind of material that's new, you know, and you've got the tenure committees trying to catch up or the universities trying to catch up. And so.
00:05:46
Speaker
You know, Tara, Megan and I are all working on different kinds of publications and mine have been strictly traditional. I wish they weren't, but that's the kind of media that I'm tied to with the publishers I'm working with. And I don't know how Megan or Tara, your work will evolve and how that will be published when you're ready to do so. Well, I've recently had the circumstance of trying to actually publish my PhD thesis as a video game because
00:06:15
Speaker
as we mentioned earlier, a lot of the arguments I want to make are participatory, like I can't easily make them in a text from what I'd have to describe them, which kind of defeats the purpose. But basically what it came back is that the Academy is really interested in this, like I presented a paper at the British Library and they were really on board with this, like they get that there's a different way to make an argument. But the whole structure of how they store and take thesis and how they kind of
00:06:41
Speaker
The kind of technical stretch which surrounds it has like a very fixed format and basically it means that you have to present a PDF and you have to present a bound monograph to them at the end of it.
00:06:51
Speaker
And there's no good reason for this other than that's what we've always done. And that's what our system is set up for. So you kind of have this interesting part, which I think Andrew can speak a lot more to, which is that the sort of superstructure of the publishing industry has revolved around this very particular media form. And so that's just kind of how it is for no reason other than the infrastructures there. But something that is interesting now that we can talk about three of us being with York is that
00:07:21
Speaker
we see at least for our program specifically you are expected at the end to present the monograph and it goes in the library and it does this and it does that and it's a bound text but along the way the requirements that you have to meet except for that are that you have to be doing things like you have a we have a point-based system that we have to meet as students that say that we have to do a certain number of conferences or we have to present a certain number of
00:07:50
Speaker
discussions or create an event. And these are participatory things to show off what we're doing. But then in the end, even though you've done all of these things that require doing for other people to be part of, you still have to do the book.
00:08:08
Speaker
I think it's interesting listening to you guys talk about the different types of media that are coming out because what immediately comes to my mind are things like the podcast, like a blog, and things very similar to a Hangout situation, like a Google Hangout where it is a video conference to an upwards of 10 people where even more people could observe but can't directly interact.
00:08:32
Speaker
I see these as new ways of basically interacting and getting information out there.
Acceptance of New Media in Academia
00:08:40
Speaker
And I could see how academically those types of things could be argued for and probably absorbed a whole lot quicker than something like Tara's describing where she wants to basically make a game out of her thesis, which I think is fascinating.
00:08:57
Speaker
And I but I also think that that probably would have a little bit more pushback academically like Megan was saying it's or Tara or Megan was saying the only reason it's this way is because this is how it's always been. So what kind of what kind of active ways do you think there are to start breaking down those walls and start moving things forward because why couldn't you instead of
00:09:21
Speaker
spending $1,000, $1,000 or more dollars to go to a conference somewhere, why couldn't you just do a Google Hangout where you could easily present the same kind of information in almost the same format to an even larger audience than you would be able to reach at a normal conference? And why wouldn't that count kind of a situation? You should say that because myself, Andrew and Sean Graham, about a year ago now held the archaeo gaming on conference just like the brainchild of Sean and he was basically wanting to explore like,
00:09:51
Speaker
how we could create a conference where it was participatory rather than just like one person delivering a paper and this was done over Google Hangouts and so you'd have like a leader of a discussion who would present a point and then everyone would contribute and talk along the way and I think that was hugely successful but
00:10:09
Speaker
when you kind of talk about it with a lot of people you still run into that boundary of it being like it's new and unproven and therefore it's not as valuable and I think this is a little bit tying into the point that you made as well where it's like things like podcasts things like video have been around for quite a lot longer than video games at this point so we're kind of like they're coming of age they're maturing and we're accepting that they're not just entertainment forms they're also serious modes of expression they've had their kind of
Networking and Presentation Flexibility
00:10:38
Speaker
masterpieces done on them and we get it. Whereas video games are only just, I think, in my opinion, starting to mature at this point into an expressive medium rather than just, you know, that entertainment form that we know and consume. So I think there's some deeper seated issues about how we think about and engage with media rather than necessarily it being a standalone thing that just exists. A couple of things, you know, with dealing with conferences,
00:11:05
Speaker
and attendance via Skype or via in person. I've been going to academic conferences since the early 1990s, and I found them to be the most valuable basically in networking face-to-face, not giving the paper and not listening to other papers, and I'll probably get into trouble for saying that, but
00:11:25
Speaker
but it's seeing friends and old roommates and meeting people in the bar or in the lobby or in a special interest group and having a really good, deep, long conversation about whatever it is that's on our minds and then coming to some kind of conclusion or coming away with some great ideas.
Peer Review Challenges and Innovations
00:11:47
Speaker
As far as presenting at conferences, if you submit your abstract to a conference,
00:11:53
Speaker
And those abstracts get pure red and you get accepted. I think it's totally acceptable for you to present via Skype, via coming in person. And that is a dialogue that needs to be had between the speaker and the organizer to make sure that that's kosher with the group. I know a lot of the big annual conferences, that's how they make their money, is by registration fees and people coming. And it's all about cash in my mind, as opposed to delivering some good content. And speaking of good content,
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, we have to also think about the peer review process as it is right now. I think it's broken and it's especially so when you're dealing with new media. How are we going to peer review a thesis that is a game? I'd love to know and be a part of that because it sounds really interesting to me. But who has the digital literacy?
00:12:44
Speaker
to start to serve as a peer when peer reviewing things for publication in these new formats. Andrew, can you describe the peer review process as it stands today for any of our listeners who might not be in the field? I assume they're out there. Yeah. For the two places where I've directed publications, we have a double-blind peer review that is to say that an article comes in, it is anonymized by us in-house,
00:13:12
Speaker
we identify readers who are professionals in the field in which the article has been written and they remain anonymous to the author as well. So we send this blind article out to two reviewers on the outside and we also send it to a committee reviewer on the inside, also anonymous, and then feedback comes back in between four and six months to say, okay, this is good, this is bad, this needs revision, this needs rejection. And at that point,
00:13:39
Speaker
the author and the reviewers are consulted to see if they want to waive their anonymity so that they can be a dialogue between the author and the reviewer. I know that that part is sometimes rare to see, but it's still helpful and then things proceed. So it's basically vetting the content by people who've kind of been there and done that and are experts in the field. That's good in some ways because you're dealing with perhaps senior scholars or those who have a lot of experience.
00:14:05
Speaker
And it's bad because you're kind of ignoring new blood who might have new things to say or new ways of thinking that might be with the old school folks. They might be poisoning the well with the new school folks that might not have the experience yet at the same time this article.
00:14:19
Speaker
needs to be read and reviewed by folks as opposed to just going out there, which is a little bit different than doing a podcast or doing a blog, which isn't really peer review. It could be, you know, if I write something on a blog, I want people to come in and yell at me, you know, so that I could make the argument better. You know, that's the kind of peer review, but it's not formal like what I was describing.
00:14:38
Speaker
Right. I mean, we still get feedback and encourage feedback to things like our blogs and the podcast here. But like you're saying, it's not sought after exactly. Like I will, I don't send this podcast to other people. Maybe I should, but currently I don't send this podcast to people and be like, Hey, critique my podcast.
00:14:58
Speaker
And with the double blind, I mean, like you're saying, who would I even send this material to? So if you could change it, ideally, I mean, and I know this is a huge thing to do, but what would you, in the perfect world, what would you like to see going forward with presenting information outside of the traditional formats? How would you like to see the peer review process work with things like a blog, a podcast, a video game?
00:15:23
Speaker
I personally, I personally think, and I have a feeling that a lot of people will disagree, but I personally think that anonymity should be waived, that the authors and the reviewers should be, their names and stuff should be known to each other. I agree. I think I am a huge proponent of open peer review. It creates better dialogues within the discipline. I think it creates situations where senior scholars and younger scholars actually have to interact
00:15:50
Speaker
and discuss material in ways that they might not necessarily do because of inherent power structures in the academy otherwise. I think that it gives more people a chance to put their stuff out there and to feel like they're going to get a real opinion on it. And I personally just believe that if you are putting your work out there, one, you put your name on it, and if someone is going to critique your work, they need to put their name on their critique. I think it's just fair.
00:16:19
Speaker
I was just going to add to that that I like the idea of a crowd peer review as opposed to just a couple of readers. I mean, you can have a couple of specialists read, but you should also open it up to other readers as well for a certain period of time. Yeah, and it's interesting because for all that it is a problematic service, Academia EDU offers that. They offer the ability to put your paper up ahead of time and open it to review and open it to comments.
00:16:47
Speaker
And I have a number of people that I follow on there who I, when they opened up their papers, I, you know, I read what they write. I send stuff back to them and I'm, I'm not getting anything out of the process. And except for that, I'm getting to engage with scholars about work that is interesting to
Bias and Transparency in Peer Review
00:17:03
Speaker
me. And then I have something to say about, and they're getting a larger set of comments before they send the paper out. And everyone is having to be honest about who they are. So.
00:17:12
Speaker
When we are doing this for archaeo gaming, you know, if you write an archaeo gaming paper and you submit it someplace, I'm wondering how they're going about finding reviewers to review that content. You know, I have an idea that editors are just kind of scratching their heads as far as, well, okay, we have this, it seems interesting, but you know, who on earth do we go to? And that's a real problem. When I was at a thing at Rutgers yesterday and Sarah Bond, who was at the University of Iowa had created a spreadsheet
00:17:40
Speaker
a crowdsource spreadsheet of women in ancient history who could serve as peer reviewers for various topics. And I think we would need something like that developed for those who can peer review, you know, media archeology, archeology, game studies and the like. I don't know if that exists yet or if it doesn't, you know, who creates it and how. Well, and then we started that at some point, didn't we? I don't know. Remember there being like a spreadsheet that
00:18:08
Speaker
we had on a Google groups or somewhere where we were basically putting down what we did, what we were interested in for the public, but that's somewhere lost in my first year of PhD brain. So I'd have to look for it.
00:18:23
Speaker
Well, my only concern with what you guys are proposing that I can come up with right at the second is the potential for bias in the reviewers, which is I'm guessing why everything is supposed to be double blinded in the first place, even though I know that's not a perfect system also.
00:18:40
Speaker
But I mean, there have been several studies that clearly demonstrate bias, especially gender bias amongst academics and reviewers. So having it open into the public, I mean, it sounds great and probably this won't even be a real issue, but there's always the potential for research.
00:19:00
Speaker
to be turned down or poo-pooed simply based on the gender of the individual doing it, or even at that point, like the race or ethnicity of the person doing it. So how would you... But I guess if it's... I'm sorry. No, go ahead. If it's completely open and you have a community which is supportive of this, then inevitably whoever that reviewer is will be pulled up on that. Yeah, name and shame. Yes. It's a self-policing environment, I think.
00:19:25
Speaker
Do you think so you think it would actually like improve that situation as opposed to compound it? I think it's gonna be nasty at first, and it's gonna hurt feelings at first, but I think it's better for the
00:19:37
Speaker
dialogue in the process overall. I think it's better for scholarship overall. Okay, I think as well that we're in such a small discipline. I mean, if we're specifically talking about like, archaeo gaming, it's like, we're such a small and emergent discipline, like we all know each other anyway. And when you start to bring in other people into that, it's like, well, like, I recently got back review comments on a paper that I submitted. And it was clearly reviewed by someone who's very, very knowledgeable, but not in my area. So the comments I got were not
00:20:03
Speaker
like they were relevant, but they were not relevant to that particular paper. And so it's really hard to then engage in a dialogue if I don't know who that person is, and I never will, because those comments are never made public. And you start to feel like not necessarily attacked, but just like, oh, I don't really like I can't actually communicate with you. I can't bring you into this idea. If we don't know who each other are, if we can't talk about it in a way which is actually open.
00:20:27
Speaker
to kind of remain behind those barriers. They just, yeah, it perpetuates them rather than actually drawing the whole thing together.
Embracing New Media in Publishing
00:20:33
Speaker
That's interesting. Okay. Angie, do you have a final thought? No, never a final thought with me. It's always thinking in progress, and I hope they never finish. Okay, well, let's go to break real quick. And when we come back, I think we may pick up roughly where we left off, just because I feel like we have a little bit more to chew on here.
00:20:55
Speaker
Archaeotech Podcast, hosted by Chris Webby Webster and Chris Boone Sims, is a show dedicated to the technology of the modern archaeologist. On the Archaeotech Podcast, we interview people using interesting tech, and we dig into the issues, advantages, and try to uncover the disadvantages of the digital age and going paperless. We all know there is no paper in the future, or should we say, paper has no future. Check out the show at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com forward slash archaeotech. Let's get back to the show.
00:21:27
Speaker
and we are back, and let's move the conversation forward a little bit, or back a little bit, I guess, to how we want to try to communicate the research that you guys are doing going forward, not in paper format, but maybe in some other various formats, or even how you would even go about communicating this research. Andrew? Okay. Sorry. No, this has been on my mind, you know, because, you know,
00:21:53
Speaker
I've been working in traditional media for so long that working with new media is something that is necessary. I'm not quite sure how to do it yet. I mean, we start with text, then we supplement with photos that are often presented in grayscale. We need to then move to color images. And with the internet and with other kinds of publishing platforms, now we can start embedding movie clips, we can start embedding
00:22:22
Speaker
3D images, 3D models and things like that that could be manipulated.
Intellectual Property Challenges in Gaming
00:22:26
Speaker
I think those are all moving in the right direction. I think ultimately what I want to see is synthetic text paired with different kinds of media, some of which can be engaged with by the reader and also the underlying data set so that people who read you and people who are looking at the media that you present can go back to the data and see if they can draw the same conclusions
00:22:50
Speaker
or different conclusions, but not only that, whatever you publish in whatever format you decide to publish in, that should not be the final word. And that pretty much any publication going here on out in archaeology or really any discipline should be treated as organic. That is to say it's a starting point for a future conversation where you can tweak the data, make the data better, or analyze the data in a different way. And that's all contributing to the story of whatever it is that you're talking about.
00:23:20
Speaker
And this can go all the way into AR and VR and playing a game or a snippet of a game or finding some way of engaging the reader in the content that you're providing as the author. Now, that's a tall order for the authors. And that's also a tall order for the publishers because the publisher needs to figure out how to present that content. Typically, it's going to be done in an online way. And not only that, but you also have copyright to worry about because if you're dealing with dams, you're
00:23:49
Speaker
games, you're dealing with intellectual property that's not yours, and how does that work and how do you get around it? And so there are a lot of hurdles to cross as we kind of enter this new world of publishing. Tara?
00:24:05
Speaker
No, I totally agree. I agree to a point. I think that there's quite a big deal that gets made out of like, oh, how do we engage with games online? And it's like, well, we're used to producing games in this format. And especially like if you're making games as your argument or you're making games like where you hold the intellectual property because you have made them.
00:24:25
Speaker
I just don't fundamentally see the difference in either the peer review process or the way in which we present and engage with these things. I think it's a different type of a vocabulary and a different type of a way that we need to learn how to read and engage, but we only develop that by actually doing it.
00:24:44
Speaker
yeah, taking that leap of faith. And that's on two sides, right? Like you need people who are, you know, brave enough to produce in this format. And we also need publishers who are brave enough to be like, yeah, we'll take that leap of faith with you. But as kind of a depressing roundabout to that, as we kind of discussed earlier, there's these huge structures in place which revolve
Rethinking Academic Rigor
00:25:04
Speaker
around the monograph. So it's hard to break out of those, even though we know and we already can and have done this in the past. Megan, do you have anything to add? I guess I'm thinking about
00:25:14
Speaker
Why does it feel that the only way you can get any sort of rigorous academic judgment on an argument is through a written structure? Why do we think that that's the only way that really has enough rigor to count? And for me,
00:25:36
Speaker
I guess, I'm sorry, again, I'm ill and I'm trying to formulate this argument in my head as I go, which I think is part of what I'm saying here. For me, I think that there is much more academic rigor in the idea of putting something like a game out there and having people play it than there is in writing a paper about putting the game out there. There's more dimensions to it and people have to engage with it more. And I think that the more someone has to engage with your work,
00:26:06
Speaker
the more they're able to be critical about your work and the better feedback you get and the stronger arguments you have to make. Well, here's a question though for you. I remember way back in the day, I remember when YouTube was starting to become a thing. When people really were investing time and effort into YouTube and
00:26:27
Speaker
we would make videos, put ourselves out there. You know, I think in the beginning you could only make like a five minute, five to 10 minute video. But anyway, you'd make your video, you'd throw it up there. And you used to be able to receive video responses from other people. So on top of being able to just write a comment, which is easy, people would take the time to make their own talking head video and send it back to you as a way of rebutting what you said. So you're basically having like a long distance conversation, a long distance face-to-face conversation.
00:26:57
Speaker
with breaks. And this is my thought. If you're putting your argument out as a video game, and I go and I play your game, and I want to, I want to rebut your game, like the argument that you've made inside your game, I want to rebut it.
00:27:13
Speaker
How is the best way for me to rebut that? Do I then go and make my own video game that is counter to your video game? Should I write about it? I mean, how do you see the give and take happening? Is it happening in the only the one medium or are we encouraging interaction through all forms of media?
00:27:35
Speaker
Well, I think this is the beauty of video games. We've touched on this a little bit before. Video games are text. They are visual. They are interactive. They are audio. You can make arguments and you can rebut and engage these arguments in so many different ways. They are truly multi and trans media entities.
00:27:53
Speaker
And it's like, we see this already with how people pick up and they do like let's plays of games and they make video, like a YouTube channels about let's play about critiques of games, about whatever.
Open Access Implementation
00:28:03
Speaker
There are people who run podcasts on it. There are people who write extended articles and put them onto like kill screen or various other like online gaming review platforms. And so it's like, absolutely that there are examples as well of games that should be made as rebuttals to games or like ones which are kind of critical commentaries.
00:28:21
Speaker
But I don't necessarily think that the argument has to be, or the response has to be as a game, it has to be in whatever media form best suits the argument that you're trying to make, which I guess is the overall kind of statement of the day, right?
00:28:35
Speaker
No, and I like what you guys are saying. I just want to... So how do we keep track of this then? Let's say that Tara gets her thesis out there as a video game, and she goes and plays it, doesn't like the point Tara's making, and he, I don't know, writes a blog article and makes a podcast about it.
00:28:56
Speaker
Megan comes to Tara's defense or something, I don't know, or Megan also doesn't like it, but has different points than Andrew's. So, you know, in the past, we would have had basically the comment section in a journal where we would all just send our letters of dissent or support.
00:29:12
Speaker
about whatever article it was that we read, but we live in a multimedia world now and we have the internet and there are so many places that we could go and communicate, Facebook being just one and not even the best. So how do we keep track of all of this stuff so that someone can then come along and follow the whole conversation? This probably falls under the rubric of linked open data where the game as published or the game thesis
00:29:41
Speaker
as published, gets its own stable URI, which is maintained at York's repository, for example, or is put on some kind of open access platform like opencontext.org. And anybody who wishes to reference, review, comment upon, critique that game and game thesis can reference that stable URI and can therefore create a link from their place to the other place. And with open context, you can maintain those links going back
00:30:10
Speaker
you know, to things that are mentioning the source material. So maybe that's the best way to think about it is to publish in an open way and to have that game thesis out there in the open also with the unique key that is just tied to that game and anything that references the game will use that key so that you can find pretty much anything. So then that also falls back on the concept of open access. And I'm not sure where the three of you fall in that argument.
00:30:37
Speaker
But it seems to me that you would almost have to have complete open access to an argument, to a thesis like that.
00:30:46
Speaker
Not necessarily. I mean, like I completely, 150% think that all academia should be open access for a number of different reasons, but having like a stable URI or a DOI does not necessarily mean that it has to be open access. Like there's technologies that are coming in such as like blockchain, which is like a consistent repository of like all the things which relate to a specific thing. So I can imagine a world where you have like blockchain accounts, which kind of link together, uh,
00:31:12
Speaker
all the steps which a article has gone through, or like a game has gone through, and all the things which are related to that as well. But I do, yeah, to take that 360 again, I do absolutely 100% think that this should all be open access and available. Knowledge should not have a price on it. Andrew, do you have an opinion? Yeah. I agree with Tara. I certainly think that any intellectual property
00:31:39
Speaker
that is produced in the name of advancing science or whatever, humanity should be that there is open access and that we need to find a new business model for that stuff if we want to have a business model at all. But if it's not open, it's closed. That's just me talking. But Tara does raise the great point that you can assign a URI. It can be a pointer and that content might be behind a paywall, God forbid. But if it is, you're still pointing at that thing.
00:32:07
Speaker
And you're still having all of this data kind of collected around that unique identifier, whether it's open or shut. But for me, it's
Blockchain for Academic Content Management
00:32:14
Speaker
open all the way. Otherwise, I'm not interested. Megan? I believe firmly that it should be accessible to everyone. But I also think that creators have rights. And if I make something, it is mine. And I made it and I can choose how to share it with you and how
00:32:32
Speaker
much of it I want to put out there. And that's your choice as a consumer or as someone who takes up the media that I produce as to whether you want to accept it or not based on the limitations I put on it. Well, so that opens an interesting set of questions then, because it seems to me, and this is as an outside observer, that the concept of written academia
00:32:59
Speaker
is different than the concept of a game, any game, in that a game is seen as a creative entity or a creative thing, almost like a piece of art.
00:33:14
Speaker
you're right as the creator of said piece of art, I have the right to restrict access to it as much as I can, but I also know as someone who has published creative writing and who has friends who put physical art out into the world, once it's out there, you lose the ability to control that.
00:33:37
Speaker
And it is now open to the interpretation of anyone who interacts with it. And so I agree. So that being so much different from an academic paper, which has the luxury of me definitively writing out exactly what I want you to take away from this paper. How do we reconcile that? This is the beauty, again, of using something like blockchain. It's like, obviously, you can't prevent people from, like,
00:34:05
Speaker
blatantly ripping your stuff through a number of different methods. But the thing about blockchain is that all that information so you can say like, you can use this piece in these different ways, or it's going to cost you this amounts if you want to remix and do whatever with it, like you retain complete creative control. And that's always associated with that block. It's always associated with that thing that it's it's relating to. So it's kind of like
00:34:27
Speaker
This is the technology that things like Bitcoin and increasingly bank transfers are built around that it's like no one person has that entire chain. It's spread across every node in the network. So you can control how you engage and understand and see the spread of this information. It's a completely new way to engage with this kind of concept of sharing and
00:34:46
Speaker
the assigning of Creative Commons or the assigning of copyright, the assigning of all these different things, it's in the network rather than abstract to it.
Credit in Open Access Publishing
00:34:55
Speaker
So I think there's a lot of emerging technologies like blockchain just being one of them that will have a really big impact and should have a big impact and could have a really good impact on how we do academia and how we understand this tension between the creation of artistic or kind of intellectual property as well as the sharing of it.
00:35:13
Speaker
Go ahead, Emma. I think where I'm coming from on this is that at this point, the way that things are... I've already seen things that I've done co-opted and used by other people who did not give me any credit because I was using new forms for things. And because maybe it wasn't clear enough that these things, you still need to give citation back to the person who you took the idea from. And I think that until we have some of these structures, it can be very frustrating.
00:35:44
Speaker
to put your work out there and to see it misused in a way that you didn't intend and to not get any credit for that. Can you?
00:35:55
Speaker
How specific can you be on that? Because I remember you mentioning that on Facebook a while back as a frustrated post. Yeah, I will be general about one instance, which is one instance where I presented something at a conference, and I know that the person who
00:36:15
Speaker
used my work was at the conference and saw it and I spoke to them at the conference. And then later they wrote an article for a very major news outlet that co-opted my ideas and didn't mention that I had come up with them and didn't mention that they had talked to me. And when I spoke to them about it, they simply didn't think that they had to give any sort of credit for it.
00:36:44
Speaker
because it wasn't something that was published yet. It wasn't something that was formalized in a way that they could give an easy citation. And so I love the idea of open access. I love the idea of information being free. But until we have structures to reward us and to create the system of academia going forward that ensures that we get the kind of credit we need,
00:37:13
Speaker
Um, then I, I have concerns and you're not necessarily looking for like a monetary return. You're just looking for monetary return at all. God knows. I did not get into any of this for money. There's no money in any of this. Um, no, it's just that right now this, the, the academic track, the economic path requires that you get a certain amount of academic and public credit for your work.
00:37:43
Speaker
and that you do a certain number of things that you can put your name on. And until we have a new structure that either doesn't require that in order to advance or that replaces the new and fluid dynamic we have with something that gives credit so that you can get credit to advance, then I have concerns. Yeah, I completely agree with Megan. And it's part of this wider kind of
00:38:09
Speaker
awful systemic issue with academia where it's like, your worth as an academic is based upon the publications that you make. And those are considered as being your ideas. And obviously, there is just so much more outside of that that goes into it. And I've had it on so many occasions that my supervisor has said, like, you have great ideas, but be careful who you tell them to, because of exactly the issue that Megan has had.
Open Content and Idea Sharing
00:38:31
Speaker
And that to me is like, that's, it kills me because I want to hear I want people to build these ideas and it's collaborative and wonderful.
00:38:39
Speaker
But not everyone shares this. A lot of people are quite selfish. And if not like meaning, like not wanting to be selfish people, but because of the system that they're involved in, you have to be to get your, you know, academic credit and progress through the levels. So it takes a wide, a huge shift at like a system based level on the way that we conceptualize and do academia to change that. And that requires everyone to buy into it. Yeah. Just to add a coda to this.
00:39:08
Speaker
I do agree that it is the producer of the content's choice as to how open to make that particular bit of content. So if I create something I can choose to let it out in the world or I can choose to keep it under my hat until publication. Anything that I tweet, for example, I treat as public. So if I tweet an idea, I hope somebody steals it. If it's good enough to steal that I'm doing a good job, I try not to
00:39:36
Speaker
to bring ego into this just because I want to see the science move forward. And if I'm able to put something out that somebody else can use in a productive way to move the science ahead, good. You know, that's fine. I don't need to be quoted or cited or whatever. It's this professional courtesy. And, you know, if I cite something or if somebody wants to cite me, great. But that's just my own personal stuff. And the folks should understand that I'm coming from outside of academia. So even though I'm returning from my PhD,
00:40:06
Speaker
It's not as big a deal for me, you know, having been outside academia for 20 years. And what I decided to do with my ideas, you know, doesn't really have a professional bearing on what I'm doing, you know, on my day to day. So it's a different experience for me, but I certainly respect and understand, you know, where Megan and Tara and others are coming from.
Public Interaction with Academic Work
00:40:27
Speaker
Well, let's go to break real quick. And when we come back, we will continue our conversation.
00:40:46
Speaker
This is Christopher Sims, host of the Go Dig a Hole podcast. It's a show geared for early career archeologists where I bring interviews and casual panel discussions about the challenges and opportunities that many archeologists encounter starting off. So, if you're still in school thinking about going back, just getting started, or want to take the next step, you'll find what you need to Go Dig a Hole. Tune in every other week on the Archeology Podcast Network.
00:41:21
Speaker
And we are back and let's talk a little bit about how you see people who are non-academics engaging with what you're going to end up producing in the end. I mean, however you choose to present it, how are non-academics going to interact with it? And how does that reflect on you as an academic or reflect on your work, Tara?
00:41:44
Speaker
Right, so one of the parts of my master's research was to go into game studios and to talk to them about how they were accessing archaeological information. And kind of one of the arguments that had previously existed within academia was it was like, oh, if we make it like open access, people will just come and consume and take all this wonderful academic knowledge.
00:42:04
Speaker
But the problem they were finding was that they're producing a game and the information which is contained within a monograph is structured in a particular way which doesn't necessarily make sense or is comprehensible to their practice. And so that kind of first alerted me to this idea that like often audiences have ways which they find consuming information more valuable or actually make sense to what they're trying to get out of it.
00:42:27
Speaker
And so for us to only produce information in this one particular way, it was never going to feed back into them. And likewise, when they produce documentation or ideas or kind of publications, they do it in a way which is often quite different to our publication methods and our idea of like what makes for a good academic argument. Despite the fact that they often had very good arguments, the medium and producing them wasn't in line with us. So I don't know if Andrew wanted to speak a bit more about how we could maybe align those or like,
00:42:57
Speaker
What sort of steps are being taken? Speaking from my personal experience, I've been trying to do this cocktail of communication for what archaeo gaming is, and that may be a reason why we're here. I don't know.
00:43:13
Speaker
You know, starting with with publishing peer reviewed articles and academic publications, blogging about stuff that I'm thinking about so that anybody who's interested to come in, comment on the ideas, take those ideas away, yell at me, I don't care.
00:43:28
Speaker
But it's done in a very public venue. I want to be as forward facing as I possibly can because whatever happens with the blog helps me contribute, I think, better to what archaeo gaming actually is. And then writing for an academic audience and then writing other things for a more general audience. The archaeo gaming book is going to be more of a popular book, I hope anyway. It's written in that style.
00:43:55
Speaker
so that people can come to it if they know games or they can come to it if they know a little bit about archaeology and then kind of meet in the middle and talk to each other. And that's what each chapter is trying to do. And then it's just talking on the podcast or if a reporter has a question talking to that reporter and getting the word out in a public environment also. And with Tara and with Megan and with Sean and with others who are working with archaeology and video games,
00:44:24
Speaker
I think we all kind of do the same thing. We talk to as many people as possible. We create this environment where people say, oh, I've heard of that. That's really interesting. And that can start a discussion or a dialogue both on a professional level, in an academic level, and also in a very public way. I think what we're doing is public archaeology as well as it is, you know, a more
00:44:44
Speaker
in a more academic bent, too. I don't know. We just have to make use of all of the communication engines as we possibly can to reach as wide an audience as we can to bring in all of these disparate voices. And as Megan said earlier, this is an interdisciplinary study, and we need to have all of the part of what we're doing. Megan, did you have anything to add? Yeah. With my work and what I'm doing with
00:45:07
Speaker
my PhD right now, despite what I said about my concerns with open access and creator's rights, I'm still doing the whole process in a radically transparent way in that I talk about my successes and my failures and the entire process and how it works and what I choose to pursue and what I choose to put behind. And I think that's important. And I think it's important as a new discipline
00:45:34
Speaker
that we talk to academics the way that we have been, that we talk to the public the way that we have been, and that we are open and honest about what works and what doesn't work.
Value of Sharing Failures in Academia
00:45:45
Speaker
Because if we want to draw more people into this, both to consume our outputs and to engage with our outputs and to hopefully encourage them to create their own outputs, then we have to show them that there's a lot of different ways to do the process and that
00:46:02
Speaker
there are a lot of different opportunities for how this can work, or not work. Because some days it just doesn't work, and that's okay. Right. Yeah, I think Megan's touched on a really important point, which is sharing of failure. Because again, like this return to the academic structure and system, it's like it privileges success and it privileges like
00:46:24
Speaker
doing something not necessarily well, but like getting a positive result rather than a negative one. But often it's in those negative results and the failures or not necessarily in the failures themselves, but in the reason why it failed that you actually broaden your knowledge significantly. And so I think that what we're talking about is if we can share openly both our successes and our failures, you get a much wider and more comprehensive understanding rather than one or the other or none.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah, I was always taught that a no result was still a result. And I was very surprised recently when I was, um, I was in a formal situation and I was explaining my structure and my case studies and everything I was going to do. And someone said, well, what if it doesn't work? What if it doesn't happen? And I'm like, well, then we learned something. They're like, but you won't get a PhD. I said, well, I don't think that's the case.
00:47:15
Speaker
I think I would then write about how it didn't work, but it wouldn't mean that we didn't learn something. And that for me is the most important thing. So there's a story moment. Well, so can you talk about it a little bit more? I mean, just kind of share. I mean, can you share? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So I was, I was, uh, I was having a meeting with some official people who are involved in looking at my work and,
00:47:44
Speaker
I have 10 case studies for my dissertation, which has been a constant source of, oh, my God, scariness for everyone, because that means 10 things that I have to do as small research projects that I then have to get public input on and write up and analyze. And it's a lot. And I have a tendency to overwrite, which is also a problem. So when I was saying, you know, this is what my methodology is, this is how I'm going to do it.
00:48:13
Speaker
I'm going to do all these case studies and then I'm going to analyze the data and then at the end I'm going to create a game that shows the best practices and principles that I took out of this entire experience. It's what if the case studies don't give you what you need? Well, the case studies will give me something. Well, what if they don't give you what you need to create the game? Well, they'll give me something and that's what I'll use to create the game. Well, what if the game doesn't work? Well, then I've learned something about that and that's
00:48:42
Speaker
That's an output that I can explain to people. And, and I just kept trying to explain that I didn't consider the failure of any step to be a failure of the knowledge process. Um, because that's just how I have always looked at scholarship. And when I was in more of a public private sector during archeology, you know, sometimes you dig shovel tests, most of the time you dig shovel tests and there's nothing there. And that doesn't mean nothing. That's still very important.
00:49:12
Speaker
So to find out that there may be this giant prevailing view that if your research doesn't give you the answer that's all polished and sparkly and wonderful that that means you failed, that was hard to understand for me. Do you guys think maybe that's prevalent in a developing field like the one you are all working in?
00:49:35
Speaker
or trying to work in, because it's so new and so unknown that people outside of the field want to see positive results before they'll see negative results. Oh, okay. Does anybody want to talk towards that? Yeah, sure. I think that as well a large part of it comes down to, I mean, like, and this is going to sound a little bit off, but it's also that people just don't understand what it is that we're doing. So it's easier for them to understand a positive result. So it's like, if you can show them
00:50:04
Speaker
a result and you're like, this is what it should be. They're like, ah, okay, I get it. I can see that thing. Whereas if you show them a negative result or you say like, it's the process that's important, not the outcome, they don't have the knowledge of what that process is because they haven't necessarily engaged with it. And it's not that they can't or they shouldn't. It's just that there is only a finite number of hours in the day. And we're specialists in this topic now having studied it.
00:50:28
Speaker
So, you know, how do we then show that process? How do we then show like what Megan is saying with hers and it's also very relevant to mine. How do you show what that process is and what the value is, even if the result itself is either non-valuable or negative or in some other way kind of different outside of the expectation? Andrew, did you have anything to add? No, I think Tara spot on. So this kind of goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning where
00:50:55
Speaker
You know, we've got this new form of archaeology using new forms of media that are unfamiliar to academia as a whole. And it, like Tara was saying, because we're so unfamiliar with
Learning from Failures in Research
00:51:10
Speaker
it. I mean, I'm not even an academic and I'm unfamiliar with a lot of what you guys are trying to do. Um, so I'm interested to see how you will communicate it. And I don't see anything that could happen as I fail. I mean, even if you, if you knew if you quote unquote fail.
00:51:25
Speaker
to prove whatever your thesis is trying to prove. I still don't see that as a failure but I'm also coming at it from field training like Megan where it's like most of the time we're finding empty holes so like I'm used to that you know um but I can see why academia would be a little hesitant to absorb something like that especially coming from a high pressure situation where you don't see
00:51:49
Speaker
the false positives and the negative results of research very often. That stuff doesn't tend to get published. But I think you do see it in some fields within academia. I mean, when you get into some of the biological and the chemical sciences, often you do see where people tried something and it doesn't turn out to be what they thought it was going to be or it doesn't work. And that's still publishable. That's still something you report.
00:52:18
Speaker
If you think that a particular, I'm just thinking like, because I've been hanging around with some biologists lately. If you think that you're doing medical testing to see if something, a particular chemical compound is going to work for production of a drug, finding out that it doesn't work is a good result. That's still important. So why does that not translate necessarily into what we're doing where finding out that
00:52:47
Speaker
something we treat as a practice or something we treat as a methodological or something we treat as, you know, a theoretical framework that we think important doesn't actually apply or doesn't actually work. I think it is valid to report on the fact that these things didn't turn out the way that we expected them to because, yeah, so coming back around, yes, I think some of it is because we are new and there is an expectation that we need to succeed.
00:53:13
Speaker
Well, and then there's an interesting question for Ryan because you said you've been in the publication, the academic publicating field for a while. How often do you see publications go through that are reporting on a failed hypothesis or a failed idea? How often do those get published?
00:53:34
Speaker
Well, from my- In archaeology, I guess I should say. Yeah, I mean, from my experiences as publisher at the American School and at the American Numismatic Society, I haven't really seen anybody publish a failed idea. I certainly read stuff that we did not publish that weren't, you know, from other, you know, just things, you know, in the academic literature where you have that failure coming up, but as far as
00:53:59
Speaker
as anything coming into the other two places that I've worked. I haven't seen it. I'd love to see it, you know, because that does add to the dialogue. It does help grow the discipline, whatever that discipline might be. You know, we learn as much from failure as we do for success, like Megan was saying. So, yeah, I haven't seen it yet. That doesn't mean I won't. I'd like to... Sorry, I was going to kind of build on that a little bit more.
00:54:23
Speaker
I have a lot of very good friends in Denmark who are doctors. And part of it is that there's too much came through, which basically said that if you don't publish negative results, you're basically taking people's lives because someone else is going to repeat those experiments and repeat those experiments and get the same failures and still not publish. Archaeology sits on this kind of interesting lay line of being both a science and an art and a humanity. And so there's not this pressure. It's like if you publish a null result, it's like, oh, well, like, you know, no one actively
00:54:52
Speaker
is penalized through death or through prolonged sickness for this. So it's like we can genuinely see there's a benefit in publishing these negative results because you don't repeat and repeat and repeat those mistakes. But there's not that same legislative or immediate pressure put on us to do so.
00:55:08
Speaker
So there isn't that kind of culture that's emerging that says, do this. And I'm aware that Sean Graham has actually been publishing quite prolifically a lot of his mistakes that he's made. And it's been fascinating to see because a lot of people have been like, why would you publish failures? Because that's admitting that you're wrong. And his response is very much along the lines of like, well, in admitting that I'm wrong, we can all get better, right? So that's actually a good thing.
00:55:32
Speaker
But it's changing that mindset of being like, oh, null results don't matter because there's no immediate impact being actually there is and we can learn from it. So since we're kind of on the topic, then, do you think that archaeology as a field is a bit phobic of the concept of quote unquote, being wrong, like, we don't see failure and being wrong, we see being wrong as a bad thing, not necessarily a learning experience, and we don't want to be seen as
00:56:00
Speaker
As researchers, we don't want to be seen as stupid, so we don't publish our mistakes out of basically ego and vanity. Do you think that's a problem in the field of archaeology? That do you think is going to affect the archaeogaming field going forward? And if you do, how do you, I mean, other than like Sean Graham is doing my publishing, physically publishing your mistakes, how do we as a field correct this problem without legislation, hopefully?
00:56:29
Speaker
I guess exactly what Sean's doing. For me, it's the latter part as well because I'm not a person who likes admitting that I'm wrong or likes making failures. I like being right. But it's like you eventually have to come to the conclusion that it's like you will have failures and those failures are an important part of this journey. So it's important to share those. So it comes from the individuals as well as from the community at large. If we can create a community of practice which supports and engages and discusses these
00:56:55
Speaker
mistakes or dead ends or failures in a way which doesn't frame them as failures, frames them as being part of that journey, then I think that's the important step to actually like true innovation and truly doing something different and exciting. And I think that I am biased in this and that should be put out there, that I'm biased in this argument because my research is about creating ethics and best practices that I think that you
00:57:22
Speaker
inherent in my argument is you can't have best practices without talking about mistakes. Because best practices don't happen without practice. They don't happen without trying. So you're a big advocate for publishing your failures. Yeah, I am. I own my failures. It's
00:57:40
Speaker
It's just, I think something that has to happen. I don't like it. I don't like people knowing when I'm wrong. I don't like people looking at me and shaking their finger and going, you screwed up. Nobody likes that. But if my stated research goal is to find ways to make what we're doing better as a discipline and to make us more ethical and more honest and better practitioners, then I think that I have to take those hits and show where things don't work.
00:58:09
Speaker
This also, we're talking about personal ownership of failure and publication of failure. This also needs to escalate to the institutional level as well, where you work in an environment that is okay with failure as it is with success. You'll find this with granting agencies too. For example, the National Endowment of the Humanities Office for Digital Humanities. I've said on panels reviewing projects before, and we're told that
00:58:38
Speaker
we are encouraged to take risks or to seriously consider what might be perceived to be a risky project, something that is teetering on the edge of failure, but might be at the edge of brilliance. Um, and if it fails, okay, you get some money and it failed and we learned from that. Um, so, so it's good that we all take personal ownership and, and, and pride in the work. Uh, but at the same time, we need to make sure that institutions that are employing us or have us as students or are giving us money, um, are also okay.
00:59:07
Speaker
with the chance and the likelihood that there will be some kind of failure. Well, guys, this has been a great conversation. I love getting the three of you together. Do you have any final thoughts on anything that we've been talking about this episode? Even though Andrew doesn't like final thoughts? Nothing is final.
00:59:29
Speaker
Yeah, in that I agree with him. I don't think that there's a final thought on this. I think that this is a process that's ongoing, because if you're not continuing to think about this stuff and be be reflexive about it, then you're not working your brain. Tara? Agreed. All right, then. Well, thank you all. Thanks, everybody, for being on the show. And I look forward to talking to you all next month.
01:00:04
Speaker
If you like what you've heard, subscribe and share us with your social network. 8-Bit Test Pit is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play, or online at the Archaeology Podcast Network site. Be sure to comment and give us a like wherever you listen, and consider donating to the show and the network on our website, archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. 8-Bit Test Pit is produced by Sarah Head and Tristan Boyle. Music is provided by Tristan Boyle. Thanks for listening.
01:00:20
Speaker
Okay. Sounds good. Bye. Bye. All right. Bye.
01:00:58
Speaker
This show is produced by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, and edited by Chris Sims.
01:01:03
Speaker
This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com