Sylvina Tilbury | HER Officer | Historic Environment Team
Planning & Development Service | Highland Council |Glenurquhart Road | Inverness | IV3 5NX
T: 01463 702503 | F: 01463 702298 |
http://her.highland.gov.uk

You can now send us photos via our Flickr group: www.flickr.com/groups/her  

Facebook: www.facebook.com/HighlandHER  Twitter: www.twitter.com/Highland_HER

Tim Grubb - HER Officer
Gloucestershire County Council Archaeology Service
Environment Directorate
Gloucestershire County Council
Shire Hall, Westgate Street, Gloucester. GL1 2TH
Tel - 01452 425705
Email - [log in to unmask]
Web - www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archaeology
HER Enquiries. www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/her

Go to www.gloucestershire.gov.uk to find information on any County Council service. It couldn’t be easier to find information instantly and in some cases apply for services online.

Dear Adrian,

Currently the entire OASIS process places too much emphasis on the HER verifying the entry.

-At best the archaeological service itself gains no benefit from the OASIS process. The HER ought to receive the report in paper or digital form, whether or not the recording was generated by the planning process. And invariably time has to be spent correcting information such as monument types.

-At worst the archaeological service is asked to verify detailed information that is beyond it knowledge (In my case this would be details of what is in the archive!).

This might have been fine when there was free time and resources within the archaeological service, but this is increasingly not the case. Even if checking OASIS entries was then the lowest priority it was still a priority.

I envisage a time when the time and resources within LA resources just will not be there and OASIS will then fall off the lorry. So if the bodies funding OASIS want it to continue, they will have to find the resources for all this verification centrally, or find some other way of verification.  

Chris 

Sarah Orr <[log in to unmask]> 27/09/2011 15:56 >>>

Dear Adrian
I'll use the same format as Nick in replying

- How does OASIS currently fit with your current work processes?
Like Nick, this is just pretty low down on my To Do list. One of the
main failings of OASIS (and hence perhaps a reason for log jams in the
system) is that it is of very little benefit to HERs, and hence cannot
be a high priority for us.  By the time most archaeological work is put
into an OASIS record, we generally already know about it either through
liaison with the Development Management process or because the report
has been deposited with the HER.  The primary advantage of OASIS
notifications to HERs is that we get to hear about work that has taken
place outside Planning, eg Diocesan/ local community work, but this
isn't very often.
It also seems to be a mistake to ask HER staff to assess the grey
literature report and accept/decline it - at this point in the
development management process, the report will have been passed by
planning archaeologists and the contractors aren't going to change it if
the HER declines it.  All the HER staff can do is correct any glaring
mistakes in the OASIS record itself - and I also add in the HER event
number under associated project reference codes.

- In what ways does OASIS contribute to improved standards and
consistency of event recording,
Don't know about this - does OASIS use the new Events thesaurus?
One advantage of contractors using OASIS whilst also writing the reports
though is that it does help focus the mind on the essential Event fields
which HERs will need when creating their own database records (and what
should be the MIDAS Heritage Investigative Activity mandatory units).
Some contractors now are putting info from their initial OASIS forms
into the
Summary at the start of their grey literature reports.  This strikes me
as a good use of collected information - ie why duplicate work by
writing one thing for a Summary page and something else for OASIS.

- In what ways does OASIS contribute to efficiency of information flows?
Probably not very much bearing in mind the answer to the first question,
but could be a time saver for contractors with regards to my second
answer.

- What are the specific issues and challenges? What should be the
priorities and why?
Going back to what is stated to be the overall aim of the project - 'to
provide an online index to the mass of archaeological grey literature
that has been produced as a result of the advent of large-scale
developer funded fieldwork and a similar increase in fieldwork
undertaken by volunteers', then obviously this hasn't been achieved very
successfully.  One of the main surprises to me recently was how little
of the OASIS entered data is actually currently available to non-users.
Where would a member of the public look for that online index if the
report ISN'T in the grey literature library on ADS?

- What improvements could be made to the OASIS form and why?
Don't think it should get much longer or more complicated as this adds
to the time taken to fill it in or check it.

- Should OASIS be expanded to incorporate a wider range of heritage
assets and event types? If so, what?
Event types - may be using thesaurus.  Heritage assets - what exactly?
If the assets described aren't in the Monument type thesaurus, then this
needs expanding surely, not a different set of terminology being used.

- What wider range of heritage assets and event types should an expanded
OASIS incorporate?
As above

- What other opportunities are there to improve or enhance OASIS?
I recently liaised with Museum colleagues on the subject of
archaeological archive deposition and content, and was very disappointed
to realise that although many contractors enter details in OASIS about
archives (ie Museum accession ID, and what the physical, digital and
paper archive contains), this information isn't available to the museums
in question.  Similarly, the museum accession numbers aren't displaying
properly in the Excavations Index entry on ADS (No individual museum
identifier prefixes, hence meaningless).  In fact if the EH Excavations
Index is the only place where OASIS entered data ends up, this is a poor
reflection of the original entries - eg the short description of the
project isn't the same, the HER event number is referred to as an SMR
number, the monument types appear to be different to the fields
Period/subjects in OASIS.  But perhaps this is a different issue, ie
what the template is that the NMR uses.  Also there doesn't appear to be
a way to search on ADS ArchSearch for the OASIS number - I have raised
this separately with ADS and I gather it may come as a future
development.

Other opportunities - going back to the aim of OASIS, is it meant to be
a searchable index of sources (ie the reports) or Events (or even
monuments...)?  Currently I don't think many HERs have their Event
records online - and certainly Heritage Gateway doesn't allow for this
at the moment (ie only HER monument records are indexed).  If we want to
join things up more, may be OASIS data should have a higher presence on
HG, but with better linkages to the HER event ref numbers, museum
accession numbers and the grey literature reports, etc.  I fully support
the concept of ADS hosting the unpublished fieldwork reports on
http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/greylit/ but currently
there isn't any even link between the bibliographic references in the
Excavation Index records on ArchSearch
http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archsearch/ and these reports.
(Again I believe ADS are working on this).  As others have said in this
discussion thread, we want to ensure these kind of links exist, to and
from national/local datasets and resources.

Best wishes

Sarah Orr
Historic Environment Record Officer
Archaeology Service
West Berkshire Council
West Street House
West Street
Newbury
RG14 1BZ

Tel 01635 519805
Fax 01635 519811

[log in to unmask]
www.westberks.gov.uk/archaeology


**********************************************************************
This email and any attachments to it may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed.  Any views or opinions expressed may not necessarily represent those of West Berkshire Council.

If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must neither take any action based upon its contents, nor copy or show it to anyone.  Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this e-mail in error.

All communication sent to or from West Berkshire Council may be subject to recording and or monitoring in accordance with UK legislation, are subject to the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and may therefore be disclosed to a third party on request.