Dear all, I've been sitting back for the last couple of days just reading and thinking about all you contributions and thoughts on the IFA standards, and more specifically what sort of recommendations Ed and I can make to them on matters pertaining to digital data. I now have a head full of thoughts. I wanted to pick up on a number of the submissions, prefacing this with a pointer to the 2nd Edition of the Guide to Good Practice for Excavation and Fieldwork. This is substantially revised from the first edition and is recommended reading ... at least for those of us with trouble sleeping :-) http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/project/goodguides/excavation/ So, here are my thoughts on the following: *What (or who) the standards are actually for (cf Neil) *ALGAO, ARIA and the IFA - how do the standards interact (cf Julia) *All projects can produce archives (cf John) *Pdf problems - but perhaps not an issue for IFA (various contributors) *Metadata - specifically preservation metadata (documentation) (Ed) *What (or who) the standards are actually for ... I think Neil makes an important point when he says that we should remember that the standards are for people, not for the data (or even worse for their own sake). The standard should thus be flexible enough to be deliverable in a variety of circumstances, and provide pointers to more detailed advice in circumstances where the practitioner is unfamiliar with the technicalities. The former is consistent with the IFA's stated aim for their standards documents, the latter is perhaps less explicit in the current documents than it could be. So, perhaps what we need more than anything are a series of direct references to MIDAS, Inscription and the G2GPs in the standards. As I see it, we can do this two ways - as a reference or appendix tucked away at the back, or integral to the text. The former is easy, but could be overlooked, the latter is more work for Ed and I, and could become repetitive ... *ALGAO, ARIA and the IFA - how do the standards interact I don't doubt that what we need are a couple of neatly worded clauses for the use of curators to include in their briefs. A number of initiatives are already heading down that road, such as the OASIS project which will provide a consistent and user-friendly form for practitioners to submit data to SMR's, NMR's and others (being done with ARIA/ALGAO/the NMRs/AIP and ADS). The sorts of data produced by the OASIS will also provide the sort of "archive" I think we need for projects where nothing actually happened - ie recording where work was undertaken and where nothing turned up. However, there is purpose to including data standards in the IFA codes as well, because it seems to me that these (to a greater or lesser extent) define the ground rules of good practices for the profession. To that extent, including data standards in the IFA code would raise the profile of the issues and should strengthen the arm of curators who - like John - insist on digital submissions either to the SMR. *All projects can produce archives Yes, I think all projects should produce digital archives, even if that really only represents one single record to say "we tried but there was nothing there". There presumably must have been good reasons for asking such work to go ahead, so even the short record can be instructive at some point in the future. *File formats - problems with pdfs There are clearly problems with PDFs and there are reasons why other formats, such as xml, sgml or html would be preferable for long term storage. Is this an issue for inclusion in the IFA standards though? I suspect that this is "beneath the surface": that contractors should be encouraged to seek out the most up to date advice, with caveats for on local need, technical facilities and so on. *Metadata - specifically preservation metadata (documentation) Ed is spot on about preservation documentation. There's no question in my mind that documentation is the key to long term preservation: we can muck about with file formats and undertake mass migrations and the like - but if there's no supporting documentation then we're stuck. What do I mean by documentation? Well, expansion codes for encoded data is important, a key to putting the data back together, a note on the rights management so that I know that I can copy it or lend it out, a note on how file "x" relates to file "y" and so on. Any thoughts, criticisms, additions or questions welcome! All best wishes, William -- William Kilbride User Services Manager Archaeology Data Service Dept of Archaeology t 0044 (0)1904 433954 University of York f 0044 (0)1904 433939 England YO1 7EP, UK m 0044 (0)7967 128632 http://ads.ahds.ac.uk e [log in to unmask] e [log in to unmask]