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Anne
Sofie Fink As the National data archive for both social and medical science and history, the Danish Data Archives have an obligation to act as an active partner in the Danish research environment centred on empirical data. Among other things this means that facilities for interacting with the research community continuously must be developed. The DDA does this by taking part in cross-national development projects e.g. NESSTAR and FASTER and by internal development of existing facilities such as our web site. The latter will be the focus of this paper. At the moment DDA’s web site has a narrow focus. The content of the site is defined by the services supplied by the data archive – localisation (obtaining data) and distribution (disseminating data). The use of interactivity is limited to a search catalogue, which allows users to perform a field search. If the archive had other services e.g. educational material these would of course form additional entrances to the web site. In this way the site can be seen as a mirror of the ‘products’ the archive supplies. Another way of structuring the web site would be to reflect the complexity of the environment of which the archive is part. The objective then being to support any activity related to data production, storage or re-use. The web site should then reflect the complex ‘life’ of a data material, not the production line of a data archive. To the users the site should present it self as a portal to empirical research in Denmark. The paper will concentrate on three primary actors in the field of production, storage and re-use of data materials: data producers, the data archive, and data users. The focus will be on, how the portal can support the activities of the single actor and the interaction and interrelations between actors. The paper will take into consideration both content, structure and technical tools constituting the portal. An important aspect of a revised Internet service is the internal implications of changes. The paper will also take into account the adaptation of activities due to an enlarged web-commitment. By applying a generalist’s perspective on these problems, I hope to add to the reflections and discussions about ‘web-presence’ by data archives.
Literature: Beyer, H. & Holtzblatt, K. (1998): Contexual Design – Defining Customer-Centered Systems, San Diego, USA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Hakim, C. (1982): Secondary Analysis in Social Research, London, UK: George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd. Nielsen, J. (2000): Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity, Indianapolis, USA: New Riders Publishing Rasmussen, K., B. (2000): Datadokumentation – Metadata for samfundsvidenskabelige undersøgelser, Gylling, DK: Odense Universitetsforlag Anne Sofie Fink, data archivist, the Danish Data Archives |