Part of a three-part series of training workshops on 'hard-to-share data in the social sciences and humanities'.

These presentations and training materials were part of a workshop called 'Sharing field notes' held at Leiden University on 26 May 2025. By publishing the slides as well as the workshop planning document, we aim to make the workshop reusable for others.

Workshop abstract

Field notes are the ‘raw data’ and/or essential contextualisation of data of several types of qualitative research in social sciences and humanities disciplines like archaeology, sociology, and cultural anthropology. They can vary from handwritten, completely unstructured text in a notebook, to manually or digitally filled out forms. What they have in common is that they form the context to interpret the original data (and in some cases they are the original data themselves). As such they are essential for research integrity and the verification of results. However, they are not often shared for various reasons.

In this workshop we dived into these reasons and the pros and cons of sharing fieldwork data, and how to share them. Through case studies from various disciplines within the social sciences and humanities and input from trainers and participants we aimed to establish best practices. We covered the following topics: Why share (or not share) field notes, which notes could be shared (and which not), how to share them (e.g., in what format, on which platform), what metadata are needed for them to be understood.

Learning outcomes

At the end of the workshop, the participants should be able to:

• Outline existing practices and pros and cons in sharing field notes.

• Begin to define best practices around sharing field notes in general and in their discipline.

• Describe example of sharing fieldnotes from a range of disciplines and being able to apply these example to their own situation.

File list

• 20250526_HardtoShareData_WS3_SessionPlan: This is the planning document for the workshop containing the practical planning details for the workshop, the session description, learning outcomes, and an overview of the learning activities.
• 20250526_HardtoShareData_WS3_MainSlideDeck: This is the main slidedeck for the workshop, containing the introduction to the session, the archaeology case study, and introductions on and information about the interactive parts of the workshop.
• 20250526_HardtoShareData_WS3_Bruil: This is the slidedeck for the presentation by Martine Bruil, 'Sharing fieldnotes within language documentation (linguistics).'
• 20250526_HardtoShareData_WS3_Verheijen: This is the slidedeck for the presentation by Janneke Verheijen, 'Hyperlinking anthropological analysis to its foundational fieldnotes: An example.'
• 20250526_HardtoShareData_WS3_References: A list of references including datasets containing field notes used during the workshop (preparation) and/or for further reading.

The presentations have been made available as PDF and where possible also as PPTX. The PDF files are the definitive version, whereas the PPTX files are the most accessible. Unfortunately saving as ODPs (open versions) was not possible. Text files are provided in PDF for accessibility and DOCX/ODT/TXT so that they can be edited.

Related materials

The materials of the other two workshops in this training series on hard-to-share data in the social sciences and humanities are also available:

• Thorpe, D. E., van den Berk, M., Flohr, P., van der Meer, L., Hesam, A., Campbell, R., & Oberheim, F. (2025, May 6). Workshop on Hard to Share Data in the Social Sciences and Humanities and using the Secure ANalysis Environment (SANE). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15302953
• Lushaj, B., Gelens, T., Magraw, J.-Y., Mos, A., Baloum, R.-C., & Hati Gitundu, B. (2025, June 10). Workshop on The Ethics of Sharing Fieldwork Data and the CARE Principles. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15629394

Acknowledgements

This workshop was part of the project ‘Beyond personal data: a new initiative to support early-career researchers with hard-to-share data’ with file number ICT.TDCC.001.002, which is (partly) financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) via the Thematic Digital Competence Centre Social Sciences & Humanities (TDCC-SSH).

We thank all speakers and moderators for making their excellent contributions, the participants for their active attendance at the workshop, as well as Leiden University colleagues for their valuable feedback on the workshop design.