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I have a few questions to throw in. I'm still not clear on where the resources for this project are coming from or if this is still to be discussed? So, who's going to pay? How do we quantify how much money we need beyond that required to implement a delivery mechanism? Lastly, how do we avoid or minimise the 'Haves vs. the Have-nots' situation in order to achieve uniform coverage? It's clear that resourcing this project is a recurring theme. To my mind there is simply no getting away from the fact that no matter what solution you use to implement reconciliation, a large wodge of money is going to have to come from somewhere to fund capacity. HERs are going to need someone sitting at a desk with a computer working out what's what (although less labour intensive, you'd still need someone to do the 'this-is-that' bit* in Paul's linked data model - assuming I've understood correctly!). Without additional capacity, I predict there will be many places where reconciliation is going to take decades - or doesn't happen at all. So my "If I had infinite resources, this is what I'd do" comment is: let's have a talent pool of people in Historic England (or some other organisation, I'm open to suggestions) who are seconded to each HER for x weeks/months to just do the work. If that's a popular option, should we be thinking of making a really ambitious bid for funding as a consortium of English HERs (beyond my sphere of experience - I'm just throwing it in)? Furthermore, can we identify HERs where the greatest benefit can be derived from early data reconciliation and prioritise these, rather than taking the line-of-least-resistance, where the most able organisations are those that participate/finish first? If funding for staff is a non-starter, could we have some sort of coordination/facilitation role built into a project that would help overcome some of the obstacles that prevent LAs participating? For example, could we use secondments between HERs where some of the leg work in setting them up is done by a project officer? Could HERs have people in a 'consultancy' capacity i.e. have access to systems but not actually staff - perhaps shared with a neighbouring organisation? Or, if we end up bidding in a SHINE-style of model, an option for HERs to do joint bids so they can share a part-time post between them? Louisa *although I acknowledge that the technology exists to do this linking automatically, it's predicated on the assumption that you have enough data on the computer to make a match - I suspect we don't for a lot of our records (if I can't match our records with Pastscape without resorting to the card index, I doubt an algorithm, or whatever, will be able to). From: Issues related to Historic Environment Records [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nick Boldrini Sent: 21 November 2014 09:19 To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: E Conference Day 5 - AOB Morning folks Thanks to everyone who contributed yesterday. Slight delay to this as I have had to compose it this morning. Today is AOB day - there are no planned posts, no particular issues to focus on. The idea is if there is anything that has been raised in the last week that you would like to discuss in more detail - or even just continue discussing - todays the day for it. With that in mind, I'll just post a bit of a summary of the last week to get things going. Day 1 was a slow start, but there was discussion about the data flows around OASIS. As a general issue, data flows was also raised later in the week in regard to EH recording their work - so obviously looking at processes and potentially re-engineering them is something that needs to be considered as part of this project (NRHE to HER) as well as the wider Heritage Information Access Strategy (HIAS) Day 2 - is this project a good idea - there was a broadly positive response to the idea from HER's, though a more cautious response from EH. Issues raised by all included web access, as not all HERS are online, problems around gaps in HER coverage, how data would be fed back to EH for national projects, and the key issue (raised more than once this week) about the need for extra resources for HERs for this project to proceed. There was also some discussion about the access to the associated EH archives and the suggestion of a national central database, similar to PAS. Day 3 - and we're talking about what would need to be in place for this to happen. Resources come up again. There was some discussion about the EH HIAS Principles, particularly in relation to Maritime records. The idea of a web mapped (or similarly shared) Designation records system was suggested and discussed. Some interesting points were made about Duplication (of data and effort) suggesting that complete eradication of this may not be as necessary as many of us may think, BUT, that it should only happen where there is a strong business case. An alternative data model of a "Virtual Distributed National Record" was also suggested. Days 4 - this focussed more specifically on how to achieve the main proposal - reconciling the NRHE and HER's. 3 methods were proposed, with method 3 being the clear favourite. Resources mentioned again - but more in the context of those with multiple roles (HER/DM/Countryside Management/Policy) struggling to find time for the HER part. So overall in terms of the project, there was broad support for it, and definite support for a particular method. Inevitably a number of issues were highlighted which would need resolving purely for this project. The key thing that has emerged for me is that the reconciling of the NRHE and HER, whilst quite a significant change in itself, helps to highlight wider issues in the sector which need addressing. Whilst obvious, in some ways, some of the suggested solutions - technological, organisational, in terms of how we work - might end up being very different from how things are now. And as part of the current project is to feed into the HIAS, then it is useful for them to be brought up So on the last day of the conference, I would ask you to rake over any of the discussions which you don't feel answered your concerns effectively, raise any points that you don't think have been covered so far at all, or just post some "If I had infinite resources, this is what I'd do" thoughts to chuck into the mix for the HIAS. best wishes Nick Boldrini Historic Environment Record Officer Archaeology Section Design and Historic Environment Team Planning Service Regeneration and Economic Development Durham County Council County Hall Durham DH1 5UQ Tel: 03000 267008 [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> www.durham.gov.uk<http://www.durham.gov.uk/> [twitter]<http://scanmail.trustwave.com/?c=2863&d=4oPv1KzlOvCZOpjZTTqLPbjQpFm1TPtqBVXnbWQ5bg&u=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2etwitter%2ecom%2fdurhamcouncil>[facebook]<http://scanmail.trustwave.com/?c=2863&d=4oPv1KzlOvCZOpjZTTqLPbjQpFm1TPtqBVPkb2U-PA&u=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2efacebook%2ecom%2fdurhamcouncil> [cid:image003.png@01CF49C9.CDD0C8A0] ________________________________ Help protect our environment by only printing this email if absolutely necessary. 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