Recbecca

welcome to the SMR forum .. its a great place to talk and natter about all
manner of interesting things. I usually find it great fun ... and it is a great
way to stay in contact with collueges.

By the way i am (for my sins) the NTSMR (The National Trust SMR
Officer)

I am very happy to talk to you about it indeed we have written our
internal guidelines for data exchange.

If you wish to have a natter
my contact details are

Jason A. Siddall
33 Sheep Street
Cirencester
GL7 1HA

tel 01285 884749
mobile (if i am not answering the above)
07946335043

feel free to ring me .. or if you wish i am happy to arrange a meeting and
we can discuss at detail experiences with data exchange

quick note on our policy on data exchange ....

YES indeed we as the National Trust have and do aim to give (freely) our
data to county SMR's and national smrs i.e NMR. - i'm sure that everyone
out there will be happy to hear that there has been a number of people
ask me about that.

Indeed we really value open and close relationships with all county,
national and organisation SMR's etc. It is one of my KPI's...

Response to question 1 (the long answer)
Would using exeGesIS make this exchange of data between users quick
and simple?

hmm ok .. in principle

YES

having the same system that just about everyone is using really does
help.

However having done/begun some exchanges ...

I can give you some approx times

for non exegesis users

4 days for mapping of fields and tables and then to the terminology they
are using.

for exegesis users
2 days for mapping of terminology

you see the use of Exegesis means that you do not have to map to
someones field, table names or sizes of fields basicly the structure..
Exegesis is all the same throughout ... that makes things easier.

However we have found a distinct problem in data standards and
terminology .. we are not all using the same terminology...

this has been a particular problem that we at the national trust have put a
bit of research money into. In terms of such the Monument Status
Scheduled Monument there is currently over 15 different terms being
used across england alone. I will be publishing some of the results to that
research in the coming months.

The exegesis system has indeed the benefit of you do not have to map
to field names or tables but the terminology remains a real problem.

There is currently about 70+ county smrs 50-60? are using exgesis
given an average of 2 days to do a data transfer even given 60 users of
exegesis it would take 100-120 days to do a national data transfer for
england ... (we cover wales, northern ireland and england)... it is just not
practical.

it would be like trying to paint Golden Gate Bridge

I have put a hold on data transfer .. hopeing we can resolve it
somehow.... With this in mind we have been very pro active in
developing standards and terminology ... so we can just send a disk of
our data to the SMR's. Also we are looking at new technology to allow
us to provide our information... such as on line access or download etc

Indeed every historic landscape survey we do is inputted into the SMR in
complete form .. it seems crazy that we cannot just update the
appropriate SMR's. I was recently horrified to hear that some SMR's are
inputting some of our surveys ... we have already done it the data is
there in complete form in the NTSMR.

It would be wonderful to just be able to send a disk off to a county SMR
with the new data on it however we are not there yet ... we have a
common system but not the common standards ...

FISH (Forum on Information Standards in Heritage) is well worth getting
involved with and joinging the e-mail list as these issues are often
discussed.

Rebecca your question is not basic at all it is

FUNDAMENTAL

we are no nearer to free and easy exchange of data even with the
Exegesis system .. it makes it easier but is still too difficult.  There were a
number of reasons we bought into the Exegesis system

EH suppoort and lead with the users its development
It means we are all on a common system that follows data standards and
MIDAS
It is user led
It should enable easier data exchange ... when the standards are
updated.
It will evolve as our standards evolve

and there is the key it is not necessarily the system

it is the structure and standards ..

if we all follow the same structure and standards then with technology
the way it is these days pretty much any thing can talk to other software
packages ... i deal with many

Access 97
foxpro
oracle
etc

This is why i support FISH work and indeed the work done by Paul
Gillman ... it is spot on!!!!

we may have been arguing about the cost of the application but the
actual development and implimentation ARE SO IMPORTANT AND WILL
SAVE US ALL MONEY AND STRESS IN THE LONG RUN....

I suggest you check out MIDAS and the FISH website on the issues of
data standards.

http://www.mda.org.uk/fish/

anyway things are getting better we are all discussing standards and i
hope that we can make some progress on such issues which will make
all our lives alot better.

I hope that by this time next year i will be able to send a disk with our
latest inputted Historic landscape property to appropriate SMR's without
having numerous meetings or having to map to their standards or
structures.

it would save you all having to input them !!!!!

hope that helps

cheers

oh by the way i'm away in york meeting ADS and some of my users until
monday next week ... have a jolly week

Jason A. Siddall
NTSMR Officer
>>> "Slater, Rebecca" <[log in to unmask]> 5/February/2002
04:00pm >>>


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Message:
Dear All,

Dealing with the MOD SMR a great deal of my work relies on the transfer
and exchange of data between myself and you guys.

I presume that the NT goes about things in a similar way, how has the NT
SMR officer found exeGesIS when it comes down to data exchange?

I'm sure that my questions are really basic, so I apologise for my
ignorance.  Any response from anyone would be appreciated, but
please
treat me gently as I'm new to the world of SMR Forum!

Regards
Becky Slater