Summary
In this contribution, we will describe how paradata (i.e. data about the process used to obtain or process data) can be conceptualised, captured and processed through methodology enactment as proposed by the situational method engineering (SME) literature. By “methodology”, in this context, we refer to a collection of related process, product and agent aspects, and by “enacting” we refer to the act of applying a given methodology to carry out a project. Through enactment, the process specified in the methodology unfolds as people do their work, and the products specified by the methodology appear in a “work product pool”. In this manner, products (containing data) are linked to the tasks that create and change them from birth, so that a graph tracing back between process and data can be navigated and queried. We will exemplify this approach through the Cabila game, an online system by which anyone can enact a methodology on an archaeological project by “playing” a cooperative game.
Keywords
Paradata. Situational method engineering. Methodology. Process.