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1. Entry level
The minimal locus where credit appears is at the level of each individual entry, which can be in the form a single record in a segmented narrative, or a full page in the discurtsive narrative..
The personal identification with the minutest of observations derives from a fundamental principle underlying our whole system. Thus the attribution of authorship to every atom of the data set is not a nicety (recognizing everybody’s work), nor is it a pedantic redundancy (inflating the record with useless details). It serves rather the conviction that the best measure of objectivity is in allowing a calibration of the observers’ skills. In this manner, the dated attribution of authorship that accompanies each of the tens of thousand of individual records serves a philosophical purpose, one might say. It is a modest but specific contribution to a concrete epistemology of the archaeological record. Each atom of the system is, truly, written in the first person. It is also,from the very first moment it enters the system, a public record..
In the segmented narrative, every single observation entered by any member of the staff is given a byline that mentions both the author and the date, see for example
the seal impression A15.259 with 30 entries and 5 different authors (the two exclamation marks indicate that the information has been entered by a program), or A16.1, with 39 entries and 6 authors
In the discursive narrative the minimal entity is the page. Here one finds the full name of either a single author (e.g., the overview file in J5) or of several authors (e, g., the errors file in A16), each followed by the date when the text was written. Where needed, one may give authorship for a single paragraph or short entry (see an example in the Critique of Archaeological Reason website).
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2. Book level
Back to top: Crediting authorship in unit books
Sequential order
The order in which credit is assigned in the unit books follows a reverse order with regard to the sequence in which authoring takes place:
authoring
| 1. system:
| background authors
|
| 2. documentation:
| base authors:
|
| 3. analysis:
| contributing authors
|
| 4. synthesis:
| main and associate editors and authors
| |
⇒
crediting
| 1. synthesis:
| main and associate editors and authors
|
| 2. analysis:
| contributing authors
|
| 3. documentation:
| base authors
|
| 4. system:
| background authors
| |
The reasoning for the crediting sequence may be summarized as follows::
- ultimate responsibility for the publication rests with the main and associate editors and authors: they oversee the final critical review of all the data and provide the overarching synthesis;
- in this, they are assisted by contributing authors who provide substantial portions of the narrative and/or are responsible for specific sectors of the corpus;
- their work relies on that of the base authors who provided the myriad observations that are incorporated in the record, on which everything else depends;
- all of this rests in turn on the the design and programming by the background authors, on whose work the overall functioning of the system rests.
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Pages
There are different pages where credit is given:
| authors
| pages
| main and associate
| a. Masthead
| Home page
|
| Front matter
|
main and associate,
contributing,
background
| b. Authors index
| |
Details about the pages follow.
Back to top: Crediting authorship in unit books
a. Masthead: main and associate editors
The masthead provides the essential authorial information, i. e., it credits the main and associate authors who bear the ultimate responsibility for the publication.
The term “masthead” refers, in a printed book, to (a) the cover and (b) the title pages. The cover page is often a shorter version of the title page, and it is regularly followed by the copyright pages. These distinctions reflect substantive issues, and as such they must be retained in a website that aims to have a precise bibliographical status.
In a digital book, we formalize this in the form of (a) a home page and (b) a front matter page:
| printed book
| digital book
| example
| cover page
| home page
| A16
|
| title and copyright pages
| front matter page
| A16
| |
A variety of mastheads is possible, of which we can cite here a few examples:
- Single main author: J3, J5
- Two critical reviewers and excavators: A6
- Excavator as critical reviewer, second critical reviewer and other collaborators: A16
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b. Authors index: editors and all authors
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3. Author’s level
For each individual listed anywhere in the websites there is a link to a full profile, which gives the full detail of the individual mentioned.
The profile of the person in question gives background information about the author and it lists the specific contributions to the Mozan/Urkesh project, including a complete list of all files and entries authored. See for example the profile for Laura Ramos: scrolling down to Data authored one gets a complete list of all 82 files and 12,633 entries authored
Back to top: Crediting authorship in unit books