22 May 2017, 9.30am-5pm

UCL Institute of Archaeology, Ground Floor, G6 Lecture Theatre

This workshop will discuss expressive uses of ‘big data’ visualisations to engage citizens with the results of research into the human past and its contemporary legacies. It will bring together perspectives coming from the creative arts, design, software development, cultural heritage and museum studies.

Speakers and discussants will reflect over the principles that could and should be driving the development of digital applications for the public interpretation and communication of heritage research that is based on the analysis of relatively large, varied and rapidly changing quantities of data extracted from web infrastructures.

The workshop is linked to the Ancient Identities Today project, which is experimenting with approaches that combine the use of ‘smaller’ and ‘bigger’ data online and offline, to study and communicate the meanings and uses of ideas and materials from the Iron Age, Roman and Early Medieval pasts in contemporary Britain.

Organisers: Chiara Bonacchi (UCL Institute of Archaeology) and Daniel Pett (British Museum)

The event is funded by the UCL Global Engagement Fund, with additional sponsorship from the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities, and the UCL Institute of Archaeology Heritage Studies Section.

Registration is free but obligatory. Please register here

Programme 

9.00-9.30 Registration

9.30 Welcome and Introduction:’Big’ Data and the Worlds of Heritage and Museum Practice and Research: Part 1
Welcome and Introduction:’Big’ Data and the Worlds of Heritage and Museum Practice and Research: Part 2
Chiara Bonacchi, UCL Institute of Archaeology; and
Daniel Pett, British Museum

10.00 An Overview on Digital Heritage Data Visualisation
Melissa Terras, UCL Centre for Digital Humanities

10.30 Make it Useful, Make it Usable: Heritage, Archaeological and Museum Data in the 21st Century
Ethan Watrall, Michigan State University

11.30 Coffee Break

11.45 Big Data Gothic and Digital Archaeology
Shawn Graham, Carleton University

13.00 Lunch (provided for speakers only)

14.00 Beyond Visualization: Multisensory Approaches to Collections Research at metaLAB
Matthew Battles, Berkman Klein Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University

15.00 Big Data Distillation
Harrison Pim, British Museum

15.30 Coffee Break

15.45 Making Sense of Big Data
Patrick Wolfe and Sofia Olhede, UCL Big Data Institute

Jim Kosem
Design How We Live and How We Tell That Story

16.45 Discussion and conclusion: Principles for the Design of Digital Heritage ‘Big’ Data Visualisation
Discussants: Chiara Bonacchi (UCL Institute of Archaeology) and Daniel Pett (British Museum)

17.30 Drink reception