Hi Nick et al.
The public's role in the creation of a heritage resource is an interest of
mine, and I just gave a paper yesterday at CAA (Computer Applications in
Archaeology) on how the Portable Antiquities Scheme does it, so it's
pretty fresh in my head. I hope that I might quickly address some of the
practical and technical issues here:
Existing technologies and methodologies make public contribution to an HER
very straightforward. The three things to have in place are:
1) A workflow mechanism that allows contributions to be passed in front of
the requisite number of discerning eyes before being 'published'. Here
'published' can mean either being visible on the web, becoming formally a
part of the HER, or both. Workflow provides us with the ability to
monitor quality, but not guarantee it.
2) A data structure that keeps conceptually separate the public's
contributions from the official or statutory record. When moving data
between authorities, not everyone will want what they may see as
peripheral information.
3) When working with a large body of data creators, the system will
require a data audit facility that allows an administrator to see who is
doing what to which record, when. This will also preserve previous
versions of the document to allow an admin to 'roll back' to any previous
version.
These features are all pretty standard in industrial content management
systems, and I think you'll begin to see them increasingly in system used
to monitor and manage the historic environment.
If anyone on the forum is interested in the practical implementation of
workflow, I've put the PAS workflow schema online here:
http://195.74.122.210/~twbell/workflow.gif
It visually represents the control stages that a document -- in this case
a small find – must go through from its creation to its publication. In
this, and most configurations OAD provide, a document is not visible to
the public until it is 'official', and has completed the workflow process.
I strongly believe that involving volunteers and members of the public
(and here I mean anyone from the ubiquitous 12 year old male to a retired
amateur archaeologist) in the creation of a heritage resource is a good
thing, and certainly the way of the future. Not only does it allow HER
officers to become specialists again –- using their knowledge to review
and revise data rather than typing it –- but it will also allow for the
creation of massive, national resources that would otherwise be impossible
due to the current limitations imposed upon existing and planned heritage
resources.
Tyler
--
Dr Tyler Bell
Technical Director
Oxford ArchDigital Ltd.
http://oxarchdigital.com
On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:42:12 +0100, Nick Boldrini
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Out of curiosity (to all intending to allow the public to add to the
> SMR)
>
> How will this be managed? will records be added straight away? Or do
> they need to be checked and validated before entry? are there any means
> in place to ensure that the fields are entered correctly? what about
> issues relating to other users for e.g. Dc purposes, will they need to
> wade through a lot of (what could easily be) spurious records to assess
> significance? Won't this make e.g. DBA's a nightmare?
>
> Sorry to sound a pessimistic note but I have been dealing for a while
> now with data from databases compiled as part of Community Archaeology
> Projects under professional supervision, and some of the records would
> probably still need editing/cleaning before I would import them into our
> SMR - and these are from people who are keen, experienced avocational
> archaeologists, not someone who 'saw a tunnel there when they were a
> kid'.
>
> Just curious to know some of the logistics behind this
>
> thanks
>
> best wishes
>
> Nick Boldrini
> SMR Computing Officer
> Heritage Unit
> North Yorkshire County Council
> Direct Dial (01609) 532331
> http://www.northyorks.gov.uk/environment/heritage.shtm#Archaeology
>
> North Yorkshire County Council has the right
> and does inspect E-Government mails sent
> from and to its computer system.
>
>>>> [log in to unmask] 16/04/2004 12:31:02 >>>
> One thing I have been looking into is allowing schools access to a
> version
> of the SMR to add records to it from their area. I thought it would
> come
> under ICT skills as well as archaeology/history, and encourage them to
> look
> more openly and holistically at their area.
>
> Quinton Carroll
> Cambs SMR
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee, Edmund [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 16 April 2004 09:59
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: The Legendary HER. Was: Building Records in SMR
>
>
> Hello folks,
>
> I agree with Jasons comment...
>
>>
> Indeed it is sad in this cold technological world we do not preserve
> the
> legends and stories that are all about us ... it is i think something
> SMR's should do ... we certainly do. But we do not see the SMR has
> just
> a source for cold hard facts it is made up of a wealth and rich
> tapestry
> of material some interpretation .. some supposed.... some physical ..
> some factual and some legendary.
>>
>
> One possible problem with this sort of approach is the resources to
> suport
> it. The cold technological world is also short of cash for SMR
> development,
> and, although the Legendary HER is a great idea it is perhaps difficult
> to
> prioritise over and above the 'cold hard facts'.
>
> One approach might be to develop technologies that allow for direct
> entry of
> data by the public into our various HERs. They could, if that was
> their
> interest, use theor time and resources to record the legendary
> associations,
> the New Age interpretations etc - or indeed the perfectly valid things
> that
> are for reasons of economy beyond the scope of the HER (such as the
> mills
> records that started this thread). These could sit alongside the
> accredited
> professional description of the landscape and features that make up the
> HE.
> At Development Control time the non-specialist material could be
> filtered
> and assessed separately.
>
> Edmund Lee
> English Heritage (my thoughts though, not theirs!)
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