MOD (Mappa Open Data): A Digital Repository Enhancing Open Access to Archaeological Grey Literature and Data

MOD (Mappa Open Data) is an open data repository designed to enhance the dissemination, accessibility, and reuse of archaeological grey literature and data. Its core strength lies in the heterogeneity of the data it contains not only textual files, such as excavation reports, but also images, spatial data, archaeometric analyses, 3D models, and other data produced throughout the archaeological research process. Additionally, MOD hosts datasets from the Open Access scientific journal ArcheoLogica Data (ALD), which publishes original archaeological datasets and research. Every dataset on MOD is associated to a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). The assignment of a DOI to each dataset enhances the searchability and accessibility of its contents, while also allowing grey literature to be cited in other projects. Hosted within the University of Pisa Digital Library, and developed on a robust Open Source technological framework following FAIR principles, MOD offers structured metadata descriptions adhering to the Dublin Core metadata standard. The metadata schema has now been semantically enriched, improving semantic interoperability, data discoverability and compliance with international standards. The ontology used was provided by the Ariadne Research Infrastructure, a major data aggregator in the field, into which MOD data and grey literature will soon be integrated. MOD addresses legal and ethical issues of Open Data sharing practices, providing explicit guidelines on intellectual property, authorship attribution, privacy, and usage policies. By adhering to clearly defined open licences (CC BY, CC BY-SA), it significantly enhances scholarly communication by serving as a comprehensive repository for archaeological datasets and grey literature.