The new ongoing season of methodological and technological enhancement of the ArcheoSITAR Project web collaborative platform, starting from results achieved during the first eight years of implementation path (2008-2016).
Moving from the former specific paradigm of institutional GIS of the Special Superintendence for the Colosseum and the Central Archaeological Area of Rome (SSCol) - the territorial institute of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Tourism, in charge of the census, protection, study and promotion of the archaeological heritage of Rome, the SITAR web platform is currently evolving towards an advanced and participatory knowledge organization system, for the benefit of both the scientific and citizen community.
Since the beginning, the ArcheoSITAR Project aims to address some critical needs, particularly: I) the SSCol archive data digitization and systematization, II) the realization of the first Digital Archaeological Cadastre of Rome metropolitan territory, and III) the dissemination of archaeological knowledge via the web platform, to grant users an easy and ubiquitous access to it.
In this direction, any innovation effort has been oriented to create a new collaborative place for both scientific and citizen community, ever paying attention to users’ different informational needs and to individual vs cooperative approaches to knowledge creation and sharing.
The project implementation is being undertaken also considering new research & development approaches to archaeological knowledge management, Public Archaeology, Cultural Commons, Open and Citizen Science, and Cultural Diversity, Digital Social Innovation, and Responsible Research and Innovation.

See also at https://www.researchgate.net/project/ArcheoSITAR-Project

The Special Superintendence for the Colosseum and the Archaeological Heritage of Rome (SSCol) since the 2007 is developing a public participatory web platform, namely SITAR, with the aim to I) implement the first Digital Archaeological Cadastre of Rome and its metropolitan territory, and II) realize a new social place in which all stakeholders of Public Archaeology of Rome can access, share and personalize archaeological knowledge, and produce new data, information, documents and digital reseources to be collaboratively updated and validated, on the benefit of the entire scientific and citize community.

The stakeholders of Public Archaeology of Rome are various in terms of informational needs and quantity. They can be recognized in citizen, scholars, researchers, academics, professionals, public administrations, citizens, tourists, teachers and students, and many other users' categories.

In light of their different informational needs and approaches to knowledge use and production/reproduction, the SSCol feels the importance to make the SITAR web platform more usable, accessible and suitable for public and private users, also both of elder and young age, and therefore the current development effort is focused on ergonomic as well as on smarter informational services.

In this sense, the SSCol would implement new procedures and web interfaces and tools allowing all users to freely, easily, correctly and ubiquitously access, use and produce archaeological data and knowledge. These new theoretical, methodological and technological enhancements should be addressed through an innovative approach driven by the co-creation paradigm in implementing procedures and tools with the aid of public and private users of different categories.

 

The specific policy area of the SSCol development initiative is the implementation of new public informational services and media for the access and use of public archeological data, information, documents and resources archivied within institutional archives, in form of analogical data and documents to be processed, digitized, georeferenced and published throughout the SITAR web platform on the benefit of public and private users.

These data, information, documents and resources represent the starting point for a wider availability of public archaeological knowledge on the benefit both of the public sector and professional sector, as well as of the citizens, tourists and educational organizations.

In particular, it represents a very important aspect the free and effective availability of this knowledge with regard to its employment in cultural and creative industries' workflows and productions.

The procedural and applicative paradigm of the SITAR web platform should represent also a good practice to be shared and transferred into other institutional contexts such as other cultural Institutes of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Tourism, local government bodies and similar administrative organizations.

On the base of the SITAR web platform, the SSCol would now promote the creation and implementation of new public, open data-based informational services to be designed, developed and realized through a strong and continuous cooperation between the same SSCol and the public aand private users, in order to activate and deliver new informational media and end-point for linked open data-based applications.

Modalities and legal aspects have obviously to be defined with public and private users who will promote the creation of these new informational services. 

 

The aim of the development of the SITAR web platform is properly adherent to the collaborative and social web paradigm, to allow public and private users to share, co-create and disseminate together new archaeological data and knowledge on the benefit of public, professional, academic and research, educational, citizen and tourism sectors, not last the cultural and creative industries.

 

The enhancement of the SITAR web platform on the benefit of different public and private users, could allow to achieve new forms of cooperation between public and private actors and, particularly, introduce new approaches and procedures in urban and territorial planning, a competence that in the current Italian law framework is shared by central administration of ministries and local government bodies, such as Regions and Municipalities.

In this sense, the innovation and improvement of the SITAR web platform should offer both to policy makers and local communities a new place of territorial concertation and more sustainable development of the urban scenario, and its sourrondings and landscapes.

The way in which the perspectives of different users are taken into account is a crucial aspect in developing and improving procedures and tools integrated in the SITAR web platform, particularly with respect to the different needs, attitudes and behavious of users of different categories, to be taken into account and constantly observed to better address issues in implementing a good, effective and widely usable collaborative knowledge organization system.

As well as the transparency of government data and processes, and the accountability of the SSCol, that is another very important topic for the enhancement of the SITAR web platform due to the need of opening institutional archive and public data on the benefit of the open science and open knowledge, and also with regard to the institutional accountability of the SSCol towards public and private organizations, as well as citizens, in the domain of knowledge, study, anlysis, safeguard and promotion of the archaeological heritage of Rome and its territory.

Data protection issues represents another crucial aspect in developing and improving procedures and tools integrated in the SITAR web platform, particularly with respect to the sharing and dissemination of archive data as well as new data, information, documents and resources produced both by the SSCol and its professional consultants, and public and private organizations, such as academic and researchers bodies.

Also a particula attention should be obviously paid to personal data involved in the data processing workflows and via web sharing and disseminating procedures.

The SITAR web platform might offer a good case study and a solid base from which to start the development and testing of many real-life pilot use cases, based on typical informational needs and ways to access data and knowledge of different users categories.