Practically Virtual - Experiences from the organisation of the CAA SIG Scientific Scripting Languages in Archaeology

Hinz, Martin (11 August 2022). Practically Virtual - Experiences from the organisation of the CAA SIG Scientific Scripting Languages in Archaeology (Unpublished). In: CAA 2022. Oxford. 8.-11.08.2023.

From our experience, to keep a working group going that has set an overarching goal but is not primarily working on a specific project, this requires specific arrangements. On the one hand, communication must be kept flowing so that those involved receive continuous feedback and a continuous sense of the relevance of their efforts. In addition, a reliability and regularity of exchange (more precisely, meetings) must be achieved so that participation becomes habitual, making participation a decision which is not a case by case issue any more. Finally, a basic condition for the active participation of all those involved is that they also know what their concrete tasks are. For this, a division of labour is very helpful, but also to break down the big overarching goal into smaller, practical and tangible responsibilities. This framework is already a challenge in a local research project, where one can always reinforce the commitment by going to the office of the individual participants or chatting over lunch. The challenge is even greater, however, when it is a distributed endeavour that has the vague goal of strengthening and better establishing the use of script languages and reproducible research in archaeology.
On 26 August 2020, the CAA's special interest group for Scientific Scripting Languages in Archaeology was officially confirmed. This was a very exciting step for all those who have worked to make this working group a reality. However, the date itself illustrates that throughout its life to date the SIG has been condemned to work virtually exclusively under the conditions of the COVID situation and without being able to meet in person. However, due to the very wide geographical spread of the group's members, this was certainly the only practical modus operandi anyway.
Since our inaugural meeting on 6 October 2020, we have now held a regular monthly meeting to exchange ideas through various video communication platforms. We have experimented with different structures for the monthly meeting, starting with a casual exchange with each other, to a more structured and organised form of the meeting, to a mixed form where a lecture part and a general exchange part coexist. At the same time, we started to work on various joint projects, such as building a collection of teaching materials or working together on existing projects.
Our main working tools were different video conferencing platforms, GitHub and for quick exchange Slack. In this talk, I would like to share my experience of how the possibilities of digital online collaboration made such a project possible in the first place. At the same time, I will discuss the challenges that arise when trying to work together in this distributed way. The activities of this working group can be contrasted with the experiences we have had in the smaller, local working group ISAAK. Ultimately, I look forward to receiving ideas for our further work within the SIG in the subsequent discussion.

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