From the Savage Minds mailbag:
Ethnographic Database Project launched!
The Ethnographic Database Project (EDP) is a web-based tool for the collection of comparative ethnographic data. The EDP enables anthropologists to enter information about their field research using a set of standard codes developed for cross-cultural application; the codes relate to a society’s organization, kinship and marriage practices, subsistence economy, and pattern of sexual division of labor. The EDP is in the form of a web-based questionnaire, which can be accessed from any computer connected to the internet.
The EDP aims to complement widely-used comparative ethnographic datasets such as the Ethnographic Atlas and the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample by: (i) obtaining data directly from anthropologists who conducted field research in the societies of interest, (ii) using standard codes developed for cross-cultural application for all societies, (iii) expanding the range of societies for which coded ethnographic data are available.
The first stage of the EDP includes societies speaking Indo-European languages, which are underrepresented in the existing ethnographic databases. We welcome contributions from researchers who have conducted fieldwork in societies speaking these languages.
Visit the EDP website at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucsalfo/EDP to read more about this project, to view a sample version of the EDP, and to find out how to contribute. Please forward this link to anyone who may be interested in this project!
It seems like an ambitious project, but my advice for anyone doing something like this is to get some sample data up on your site before going public. I find it very hard, looking at the site, to imagine how it will work.
Also, I’ve never been a big fan of coded ethnographic data, being more of a full-text search type myself. Why not just have people blog their fieldnotes and code it with Technorati tags of their own design?
I’m curious what our readers think. Do you use coded data? Would something like this be useful to you?
UPDATE: Although there isn’t sample data, there is a sample form where you can see what it would be like to enter data. It seems totally inappropriate to my own research. There are questions about “animal husbandry” but nothing about income, educational attainment, or anything appropriate to the 21st century.
I dunno, sure sounds a lot like HRAF to me.
http://www.yale.edu/hraf/
Or am I missing something?
adam
Well, I think the main difference is that this is user-generated content.
And HRAF makes my point: I’ve always wished it were more like Google Books, before there was Google Books.
I think if it were done right it could be add some value to online scholarship. The problem with blogging and indexing via technorati is that the data would get thrown into the milieu of casual bloggers, political punditry and other sorts of stuff that one would probably not be looking for when doing ethnographic surveys of data. A dedicated ethnographic database that might operate on the same principles, but that also exists separate from that milieu would ensure that anyone searching that database would get data that is at least partially relevant. Cross examination of subject and geographic areas would also be a bit more elegant with a dedicated ethnographic database that conforms to certain standards. Technorati relies too much on the person tagging their entries, i.e. are they tagging with relevant keywords, are they being thorough enough in their indexing, etc.
The site itself seems quite thin right now, and as you said there is no real insight into how the scheme even works from the outside.
As far as coded vs. full-text…why not have both?