Open Context enables web-based publication of observations made in many areas of the field sciences. Open Context is intended to meet the needs of small scale, under-funded research teams and organizations. As such, it uses open source technologies, including Apache Solr, MySQL, PHP and Dojo AJAX. Open Context implements a subset of the highly generalized ArchaeoML global schema, enabling it to support search, browse, and sophisticated querying functions across many different projects, regardless of their recording or terminological system.

New Technical Directions

Thanks to support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), a major revision of Open Context is currently in development, one that implements the ArchaeoML data model using the Solr faceted search application. Solr's high performance index will support a RESTful web-service that will enable users to query Open Context retrieve data in the convenient Atom syndication format. A simple RESTful service delivering Atom formated data, supplemented with locational information expressed using GeoRSS, can have important applications for the field sciences. Not only will this approach help make interface design easier to customize for a variety of audiences, it will help make Open Context truly open but making data far more portable and easy to mashup. Finally, with the participation of Erik Wilde on the Open Context project, we are exploring standards development so that feeds can disclose how they can be queried.

User needs and content building

Open Context will see continued development and use as a platform to support research thanks to another NEH funded initiave won in collaboration with the Alexandria Archive Institute. This grant will support a detailed user needs study and will explore how researchers use shared resources of structured data to support their investigations. By understanding user needs, we hope to better guide development of collaborative data sharing systems like Open Context.