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1. Bringing user-centered design to the field of language archives

   Wasson, Christina; Holton, Gary; Roth, Heather (January 2016, Language documentation and conservation)

   This article describes findings from a workshop that initiated a dialogue between the fields of user-centered design (UCD) and language archives. One of the challenges facing language archives is the fact that they typically have multiple user groups with significantly different information needs, as well as varying cultural practices of data sharing, access and use. UCD, informed by design anthropology, can help developers of language archives identify the main user groups of a particular archive; work with those user groups to map their needs and cultural practices; and translate those insights into archive design. The article describes findings from the workshop on User-Centered Design of Language Archives in February 2016. It reviews relevant aspects of language archiving and user-centered design to construct the rationale for the workshop, relates key insights produced during the workshop, and outlines next steps in the larger research trajectory initiated by this workshop. One major insight from the workshop was the discovery that at present, most language archives are not meeting the needs of most users. Representatives from all user groups expressed frustration at the current design of most language archives. This discovery points to the value of introducing a user-centered approach, so that the design of language archives can be better informed by the needs of users. 

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2. The Impact of Ancient Genome Studies in Archaeology

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-010220-074353  

   Gokcumen, Omer; Frachetti, Michael (October 2020, Annual Review of Anthropology)

   null (Ed.)

   The study of ancient genomes has burgeoned at an incredible rate in the last decade. The result is a shift in archaeological narratives, bringing with it a fierce debate on the place of genetics in anthropological research. Archaeogenomics has challenged and scrutinized fundamental themes of anthropological research, including human origins, movement of ancient and modern populations, the role of social organization in shaping material culture, and the relationship between culture, language, and ancestry. Moreover, the discussion has inevitably invoked new debates on indigenous rights, ownership of ancient materials, inclusion in the scientific process, and even the meaning of what it is to be a human. We argue that the broad and seemingly daunting ethical, methodological, and theoretical challenges posed by archaeogenomics, in fact, represent the very cutting edge of social science research. Here, we provide a general review of the field by introducing the contemporary discussion points and summarizing methodological and ethical concerns, while highlighting the exciting possibilities of ancient genome studies in archaeology from an anthropological perspective. 

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3. Archival description for language documentation collections

   https://doi.org/http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24949  

   Sullivant, Ryan (January 2020, Language documentation and conservation)

   null (Ed.)

   Users of digital language archives face a number of barriers when trying to discover and reuse the materials preserved in the digital collections created by current language documentation projects. These barriers include sparse descriptive metadata throughout many collections and the prevalence of audio-video materials that are impervious to text-based search. Users could more easily evaluate, navigate, and use such a collection if it contained a guide that contextualized it, summarized its contents, and helped users identify and locate items within it. This article will discuss the importance of thorough collection descriptions and finding aids by synthesizing guidelines and best practices for archival description created for traditional archives and adapting these to the structure and makeup of today’s digital language documentation collections. To facilitate the iterative description of growing collections, the checklist of information to include is presented in three groups of descending priority. 

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4. A comparison of neuroelectrophysiology databases

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02614-0  

   Subash, Priyanka; Gray, Alex; Boswell, Misque; Cohen, Samantha L.; Garner, Rachael; Salehi, Sana; Fisher, Calvary; Hobel, Samuel; Ghosh, Satrajit; Halchenko, Yaroslav; et al (December 2023, Scientific Data)

   Abstract As data sharing has become more prevalent, three pillars - archives, standards, and analysis tools - have emerged as critical components in facilitating effective data sharing and collaboration. This paper compares four freely available intracranial neuroelectrophysiology data repositories: Data Archive for the BRAIN Initiative (DABI), Distributed Archives for Neurophysiology Data Integration (DANDI), OpenNeuro, and Brain-CODE. The aim of this review is to describe archives that provide researchers with tools to store, share, and reanalyze both human and non-human neurophysiology data based on criteria that are of interest to the neuroscientific community. The Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) and Neurodata Without Borders (NWB) are utilized by these archives to make data more accessible to researchers by implementing a common standard. As the necessity for integrating large-scale analysis into data repository platforms continues to grow within the neuroscientific community, this article will highlight the various analytical and customizable tools developed within the chosen archives that may advance the field of neuroinformatics. 

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5. Accompaniment and Anthropology with Im/migrant Communities

   Whitney L. Duncan (March 2023, Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting)

   This roundtable brings together engaged anthropologists working with im/migrant communities to explore the transformational potential of accompaniment as anthropological practice. Informed by decolonial and feminist critiques of anthropology, accompaniment troubles the boundaries of scholar-activist and academic-community member to address the broader social purpose of our anthropological work. We understand accompaniment as an ethical commitment to solidarity, to using our positions of relative privilege to help ameliorate suffering. The roundtable will serve as a collective conversation about the multivalent meanings of accompaniment with im/migrant communities and as a forum to imagine possibilities for caring, relational, and decolonial forms of ethnographic engagement. 

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