ACCORD - Archaeology Community Co-Production of Research Data

The ACCORD project seeks to examine the opportunities and implications of digital visualisation technologies for community engagement and research through the co-creation of 3D models of heritage places. Despite their increasing accessibility, techniques such as laser scanning, 3D modelling and 3D printing have remained in the domain of heritage specialists. Expert forms of knowledge frame the use of visualisation technologies, and community-based social value is rarely addressed. Consequently, the resulting digital objects fail to engage communities as a means of researching and representing their heritage. The ACCORD project aims to address this through the co-design and co-production of a research asset that addresses social value and engages communities with transformative digital technologies. ACCORD will create an open-access dataset of community co-produced models, integrated with expressions of social value and contextual documentation. The use of digital technologies to enhance and generate forms of social significance will be an important outcome, adding distinctive value to existing heritage assets and our understandings of them. Evaluation will be an integral aspect of ACCORD project, examining the relationships between community groups, digital heritage professionals and the outputs they have created as well as the forms of significance, authenticity and value acquired by the resulting objects.