Internal Rules of the ARKEOTEK Association

The purpose of the policies and procedures is to make clear the articles of association of the Arkeotek Association, which is located in Nanterre, France.

The members

Membership fees

Honorary members are not required to pay membership fees.

Founder members who are natural persons pay an annual membership fee of 30 euros.

Active members who are natural persons pay an annual membership fee of 30 euros.

Active members who are legal persons pay an annual membership fee of 150 euros.

The amount for the various membership categories is set annually by the general meeting on the basis of proposals made by the Governing Board.

The annual membership fee must be paid by the current year.

All membership fees paid to the Association are permanently acquired by the same. No fees can be reimbursed during the year in the event of the resignation, or death of a member.

Rights and Obligations

Founder, active, honorary members take part in general meetings during which they are able to propose resources that comply with the purposes of the Association, pursuant to Article 4 of the Association's articles of association.

In the case of votes, pursuant to Article 5.4. of the Association's articles of association, honorary members only have consultative powers.

Admission of new members

Persons wishing to join must complete an application form (in electronic form).

The updated articles of association and policies and procedures are sent to each new member.

Resignation - Death - Disappearance

Pursuant to Article 6 of the articles of association, the resigning member must send his decision to the Governing Board by registered letter.

A resigning member is not entitled to a reimbursement of his membership fee.

Membership ceases on the death of the member.

Functioning of the Association

Ordinary general meeting

Pursuant to Article 10.1. of the Association's articles of association, the ordinary general meeting takes place once a year at the request of the general secretary.

Pursuant to Article 12 of the articles of association, proxy votes are authorized.

Pursuant to Article 9.4. concerning the election of Board members, postal votes are authorized.

Extraordinary general meeting

Pursuant to Article 11 of the Association's articles of association, an extraordinary general meeting can be convened at the request of one quarter of the general meeting.

All fully paid-up members are convened by the procedure stated in Article 11 of the Association's articles of association.

Election of candidates to the Governing Board

Every two years, the board presents a list of one third of its members to be replaced. This list is sent to the general secretary before the sending out of invitations for the elections.

The list of Board candidates is prepared by the general secretary who receives the applications one month before the holding of the General Meeting, that is one month after the convening of the General Meeting which mentions, among the items on the agenda, the election of the members of the Governing Board, and the list of outgoing members.

Meetings of the Governing Board

Pursuant to Article 16, the Board physically meets at least once a year. Board members' travel expenses are financed as far as possible by their respective institutions; the Association shall endeavour as far as possible to reimburse some of them.

Meeting place of the General Meeting and the Board

The meetings of the Governing Board can take place in the various European institutions to which the members of the Board of Directors belong.

Organization of workshops

The purpose of the workshops is to state, in the field of the archaeology of techniques, the Arkeotek modellings to be undertaken for the development of effective knowledge databases. These workshops are organized by the members of the Association working in the field in question. They can meet by Internet or physically. In the case of physical meetings, the workshops can take place in the various European institutions to which the members of the Association belong. They are financed, as far as possible, by the Association, after approval by the Governing Board.

The Association's Internet site

Digital instrumentation

The aim of THE ARKEOTEK PROJECT is to create a networked collective work infrastructure in the field of the archaeology of techniques. The medium of this infrastructure is the Internet site, which is the Association's working tool and its means of communication, as stated in Article 4.2. of the Association's articles of association.

The Arkeotek site is not intended to serve as a project to digitize and network a set of texts on the archaeology of techniques, nor is its purpose to create a library of online electronic texts.

THE ARKEOTEK PROJECT treats electronic publishing as a working instrument that enables a scattered learned community to cooperate and accumulate work and to publish the results of its work on the network all over the world.

The Arkeotek Association thus aims to publish, according to a specific multimedia scripting method, i.e. SCD (Scientific Constructs and Data) format, texts rewritten according to the principles of logicism in order to foster the speed-reading of logico-discursive operations which organize a construct and the consultation of databases made available by the Association. This form of publishing is applied to the journal, The Arkeotek Journal, the monographs and the other publications promoted by the Association.

The objectives pursued by Arkeotek

The setting-up of this infrastructure reflects three objectives, i.e. research, publishing and communications.

. research, because it aims to enable all researchers to consult constructs and databases via Internet. In this way, it creates a structure that can receive archives and knowledge databases and put in place a shared online laboratory in which the researchers will be able to have direct access to the primary sources of their work.

. publishing, since a) it facilitates access to the scientific content of texts and b) it ought to lead to a lessening of the technical and economic constraints of publishing. The logicist rewriting of texts leads to a considerable reduction in text volume, while the multimedia medium makes it possible to publish data without volume constraints. There are also considerable cost savings to be made in the translation of texts into several languages.

. communications, since it is a means of exchange between researchers that is much faster and more powerful than paper-based media, i.e. books and reviews.

Free access and copyleft

In order to ensure the broadest possible dissemination of work in the interests of both the author and the community, the publication model provides free access to the contents of Arkeotek.

Nevertheless, any contribution published in Arkeotek shall naturally be subject to the same standards governing copyright and providing an electronic text with the same legal protection as that applying to an essay published in paper form.

The legal model chosen is based on the principles of copyleft, in that it allows any reader, in the strictest protection of intellectual paternity and of the author's moral rights, to consult Arkeotek's publications, but prevents any exclusive appropriation of the contents developed with the help of the Arkeotek Association and published on its site. All the legal documents (licences) shall be available on the Arkeotek site.

Principle of knowledge databases

The digital libraries, electronic text centres and e-print databanks are normally organized according to the principle of textual research in integral text, by keywords, by category, etc.

THE ARKEOTEK PROJECT proposes a different logic of reading functioning. The publications, articles or monographs, once published, are aimed to enrich knowledge databases or logicist corpuses. Details of this research project can be found on the Arkeotek website.

The knowledge databases are designed under the responsibility of Association members, as stated in Article 4.2. of the Association's articles of association.

Dynamic of the Research

The publishing of the Arkeotek Journal according to the publication model described above could be, in the future, accompanied by comments on the constructs published. These comments must be designed so as to enhance the critical apparatus thereby making it possible to assess the pertinence of the databases and/or the interpretations. They will be published after acceptance by the review's scientific committee.

The Bibliographies will find in Arkeotek a very flexible system of creation, in the form of databases that are immediately available to researchers and can be constantly updated.

The Internet site shall include an information section presenting, in the area of the archaeology of techniques, workshops and conferences, events and publications.

The Internet site shall also receive analytic and documentary tools in the field of the archaeology of techniques.

The debates arising from the scientific results could form the basis of scientific events organized by the Association.

Miscellaneous provisions

Amendment of the policies and procedures

The policies and procedures are established by the Governing Board pursuant to Article 15.3. of the Association's articles of association, then ratified by the Ordinary General Meeting.

They can be amended at the request of the Governing Board. The amendments have to be ratified by the Ordinary General Meeting.

The new policies and procedures are sent to all the members of the Association by e-mail.

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