Data Ethics in Cultural Heritage

This resource aims to introduce the main aspects of data ethics in the cultural heritage domain. It also examines how data management can be supported to become more ethical, while also addressing topical discourse about data ethics in the sector. The resource also aims to support in critically reflecting on some case studies with evident digital data ethics considerations.

Collecting digital data, including 3D data, for the documentation, preservation, study and dissemination of material culture knowledge has been rapidly evolving in the last decades. Such data provide valuable insights about the objects’ biographies and the development of humans within different societal contexts. Yet the speed with which technology progresses, the abundance of digital data – often called big data – and the lack of standardisation with regard to digital practices and hence strategies and policies in the digital humanities spectrum, eventfully raise a range of considerations many of which pertain to the realm of ethics. As such, ethics become involved in many aspects of the cultural heritage digital data domain.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this course, learners will:

• Identify and provide examples of some ethical considerations that arise in the context of research.
• Examine information documenting actual visual digital data in repositories and contrast it with ethical considerations.
• Critically assess ethical implications arising from cases in the digital heritage domain, suggesting how this could affect the discourse around ethics.