Isto Huvila

Arkiv har i århundraden varit centrala för staters, organisationers och människors sätt att dokumentera, minnas och skapa ordning – från medeltida kanslier och offentliga ämbetsverk till dagens digitala informationsmiljöer. Arkivens former och funktioner har förändrats, samtidigt som frågor om autenticitet, proveniens, tillgänglighet och insyn blivit allt mer komplexa i takt med samhällets förändring, digitalisering och det ökade användandet av AI. Vad är arkivvetenskap? är en introduktion och ett bidrag till den pågående diskussionen om arkivens roll i samhället. Antologin tecknar bilden av ett akademiskt ämne i ständig förändring. Arkivvetenskapen rör sig mellan teori och praktik, historia och framtid, offentlig förvaltning och digitala plattformar, och frågor om makt, minne, demokrati och kunskap har blivit allt viktigare. Kapitlen belyser hur svenska arkiv skapas, organiseras och används i en tid då gränserna mellan information, teknologi och samhälle blir alltmer flytande. Ämnen som behandlas är arkivens historia, utbildningarnas etablering och ämnets tvärvetenskapliga karaktär liksom digitalisering, deltagande, etik, AI och nya former av kulturarv.

Purpose. Our objective was to explore the practices around creating and analysing use cases related to digital cultural heritage. Our review of the literature unveiled substantial deviation in the depth and coverage of use cases and revealed the need for a more robust and consistent approach to creating use cases in a digital cultural heritage context. Consequently, we developed a framework to inform the development of use cases. This can support ongoing efforts to expand the use of eInfrastructures in the digital cultural heritage domain as a first step. Design/methodology/approach. Our research design combines desk research of existing literature and analysis of examples of use cases documented in digital cultural heritage projects. We examine the challenges and inconsistencies in the current practice of use case production in digital cultural heritage. Finally, we synthesize a systematic process to generate use cases which is illustrated by five example use cases within the digital cultural heritage context. Findings. We discovered that the current practice of use case design and creation in the domain of digital cultural heritage is highly inconsistent. Our analysis of issues enabled us to propose a more systematic approach to developing use cases in digital cultural heritage space, which we had approbated by developing five use cases which benefit from the use of eInfrastructures. Originality. Our paper offers an original methodology for capturing use cases in digital cultural heritage that could also be generalised to other contexts. Research limitations/implications. We focused on the digital cultural heritage domain, reflecting on the specific communication needs of users within this area. Our findings and methodology may be applicable to other domains, but we have not explored these. More specifically, our work draws on the development of five specific use cases involving user engagement with a specific eInfrastructure. Whilst we argue that these cases provide useful insights in use case development in general, they are not generalisable to cover all uses. Practical implications. The practical implications of improving the quality and consistency of use cases in digital cultural heritage are substantial. Use cases serve as tools to: (i) describe the behaviour of systems, in this case, eInfrastructures under development, such as the European Cloud for Heritage Open Science (ECCCH) and the European Data Space for Cultural Heritage (DS4CH); (ii) define the processes of communication with users and HPCs; (iii) keep the communities behind eInfrastructures aligned with their aspirations. We developed a framework to empower practical developments in modern eInfrastructures by means of a more consistent use case creation practice. Social implications. Users of eInfrastructures in digital cultural heritage are diverse, they include researchers, educators, general citizens, and other types or categories. By offering improved means to capture and represent an increasing diversity of user perspectives to using eInfrastructures, our work contributes to the wider use and reuse of digital content in society. Our work impacts directly such infrastructures and communities as the International GLAM Labs Community, AI for Libraries, Archives, and Museums (AI4LAM) and Time Machine Organisation (TMO). This work advances the use of data research infrastructures within communities of researchers, scholars, students, GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) institutions, and Cultural Heritage and Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs).

Purpose: This article explores the ethical and practical complexities of documenting data creation processes using paradata in research documentation. While transparency is essential for making data truly FAIR, the recent paradata literature has acknowledged that radical openness can conflict with legal and ethical obligations, especially when paradata involves personal notes and identifiable individuals. Design/methodology/approach: The contemporary literature is examined to explore how paradata is framed as both a solution and a challenge in current discourse. Ethical challenges and proposed solutions are then discussed from the perspective of major ethical theories to identify trajectories of problems and solutions. Findings: It is argued that paradata is best approached not as a static entity but as a process underpinned by a meshwork of trajectories incorporating values, explicit and implicit purposes (questions and answers), ethical theories guiding their operationalisation and the means by which they are put into practice. The ethical disclosure of paradata is context-dependent and must balance openness with sensitivity. Paradata itself can help in the process of deciding what is sensitive and what is disclosable, but forcing such decisions risks obscuring the contextual complexities of the ethical hurdles involved. Practical implications: Paradata is processual and the (dis)closability of particular aspects of a research process depends on the circumstances, not only of the paradata artefacts and the context of their use, but those of the entire trajectories of processes, data making and use. Originality/value: A comprehensive discussion on the ethical aspects of paradata making in research documentation has been so far absent from the literature.

Accessing information through eHealth technologies is typically suggested to be empowering. This study challenges this idea and explores individuals’ perceptions of patient portals and how the variation in these perceptions can be explained in terms of different orders of empowerment. The study extends conceptual understanding of (dis)empowerment as an outcome of patient portal use. It takes an information perspective and draws from an analysis of data from a population-level survey study of older adults (55–70 years) in Finland ( N = 251). The questionnaire included questions on health information seeking and management, health behaviour as well as the use and views of current and future eHealth technologies available through patient portals. The data was analysed using exploratory factor analysis. The findings show how individuals can get empowered and disempowered in multiple ways by eHealth technologies. Four forms or orders of (dis)empowerment were identified: disempowerment, knowledge empowerment, emotional empowerment, and information and communication empowerment. Rather than assuming that empowerment is a monolithic outcome of technology use, this study underlines the importance of acknowledging the presence of different orders of (dis)empowerment as means to the diverse ends that individuals have in their lives.

Tillgång till relevant hälsoinformation är en välkänd utmaning för patienter, men forskningen har i mindre utsträckning uppmärksammat hur individer hanterar sin personliga hälsoinformation. Denna artikel undersöker vilka strategier äldre vuxna använder för att hantera personlig hälsoinformation och vilka faktorer som påverkar dessa val. Studien bygger på en nationell enkätundersökning i Finland riktad till personer i åldern 55–70 år. Resultaten visar att sex strategier kan identifieras: digital, icke-digital, hybrid, aktiv, passiv och undvikande. Strategierna är inte isolerade utan kompletterar varandra, och valet av strategi relaterar till individens hälsa, livssituation och digitala vana. Kvinnor tenderar att använda hybridstrategier, medan män oftare undviker att hantera hälsoinformation. Aktiva internetanvändare är mer benägna att använda digitala eller hybrida strategier. Studien bidrar med ny kunskap om hantering av personlig hälsoinformation och kompletterar tidigare forskning om patientjournaler genom att belysa dessa som en del av större hälsoinformationsekologier. Resultaten har praktiska implikationer för design och implementering av e-hälsotjänster, där en helhetssyn på hälsoinformation och individers varierande preferenser är avgörande för att skapa flexibla och inkluderande lösningar.

Introduction. Existing research into information practices has largely neglected their fundamental environmental dimension. Despite earlier research into information environments, ecosystems, and environmental information, a sustained investigation into the reciprocal relationship between information practices and the physical, more-than-human environment – termed ‘environmentality’ – has been surprisingly sparse. This paper aims to address this gap, arguing for a broadened conceptualisation of information practices. Method. This conceptual paper reviews earlier literature focusing on the influence of the environment on information practices, and conversely, how information practices shape the environment. Two empirical vignettes are used to illustrate key themes emerging from this review. Results. The key argument of this paper is to expand the conceptualisation of information practices beyond traditional cognitive, sociomaterial, and sociocultural approaches. Specifically, the concept of environmentality highlights a mutual, unfolding co-construction between information practices and the environment. This includes an acknowledgement of the embodiedness, materialities, environmental underpinnings and impact inherent in these practices, as well as opening possibilities for further investigation into the reciprocal relationships between diverse more-than-human actors, including robots and animals, engaged in these practices. Conclusion. This paper concludes that a more comprehensive understanding of information practices necessitates acknowledging that information practices are environmental. By recognising information practices as fundamentally embedded within a more-than-human habitat, and engaging with their reciprocal influence, it is possible to move beyond fragmented conceptualisations and better account for their intricate complexity. Furthermore, this perspective opens avenues for critical inquiry into the embeddedness, accountability, and agency of these practices within a wider ecological framework.

Purpose: Data-documentation standards offer diverse means to represent processes, an aspect of datasets that generally lack adequate documentation for their reuse. This study aims to generate new knowledge of to what extent data-documentation standards cover and conceptualise data-related processes (i.e. paradata). Design/methodology/approach: A set of nine major general domain-agnostic research data standards (Data Package, DataCite Metadata Schema, Dublin Core, OAI-ORE, PREMIS CERIF, DDI, PROV, NetCDF) were analysed using close reading of standards documents to identify elements relevant to representing diverse aspects of data-related processes. Findings: A review of popular standards shows that they vary in what processes are represented: many focus on curatorial history and a part on capturing selected aspects of processes for enabling specific types of prioritised forms of (re)use of data. Also, the representations vary and range from complex data models to limited attribute data with parallel variation in their forms and granularity. The variations affect the capacity of standards to accommodate different ontological and epistemic perspectives to processes and their features. The findings underline how the choice of a particular standard – and standardisation as an approach for generating process documentation – has major consequences to what aspect of a process ends up being documented and from what perspective, with consequences to the usefulness and affordances of produced descriptions. Originality/value: To the knowledge of the authors, no previous research on to what extend common data documentation standards accommodate paradata exists.

The human past is far more than merely a human one. Humans and nonhuman entities and their lives are intricately interwoven into each other both in the practices of archaeologists who study the past at the present and in the past itself, which the archaeological research helps us to understand. Engaging with the contemporary multispecies practices of making and taking of archaeological information, the aim of this chapter is to provide an insight into archaeology as an example of an informational enterprise where the multispecies and more-than-human nature of information practices is particularly apparent. In parallel, the chapter draws on archaeological practice to provide stratagems for approaching other, both obviously and less apparently, multispecies information habitats information scientists are studying, including the critical need to problematise information and information behaviour as (only) human concepts; being attentive to nonhuman information practices is difficult and requires specific competences; augment the idea of what is information and when; and how informative things are interconnected, differ across contexts and time.

The increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems presents significant challenges regarding transparency and accountability. This paper investigates the application of paradata – information detailing the procedures and tools used in AI-facilitated processes – as a strategy for enhancing transparency in a context of particularly complex and historically-rooted practice: archaeology. Despite growing recognition of the need for transparent AI use, current documentation practices are often inadequate. This paper argues that paradata offers a valuable approach to addressing these deficiencies, particularly when considering the inherently heterogeneous and temporally-extended nature of archaeological data and methods. Focusing on archaeological practice, the potential of paradata is explored for documenting not only how an AI system operates, but also how it is utilised within complex, historically-situated processes. We propose a ‘paradata matrix’ as a practical method for systematically identifying and documenting the necessary paradata, recognizing that a multiplicity of transparencies – rather than singular, context-independent understanding – is often crucial for navigating the socio-technico-informational complexities of AI use.