3rd November 2008, 11:54 AM
This is just my opinion not that of English Heritage:
I was a digger at Richborough and Dover, and was initially sceptical of intrasis but after 9 weeks I have to admit I really quite liked the system.
Far from paperless though as all info was put onto context and other sheets first and then imput into the system. But there was a very good system of back-ups and all the sites data was stored both on the network and on a memory stick, and a copy sent back to the office each week so the dangers of loosing all data were actualy far less than with a paper record.
The system took a little getting used to but was really usefull to have all the data easily assessable on site and in one place for quick cross referencing and simple things like looking back at photos etc, and in theory the archive should be ready to be looked at straight away in the office slashing the lagg in site work completion and production of the report.
It would be much easier to have palm tops etc as at the moment you are doubling up on time spent by creating the paper record first.
I dont know how well this would transfer to commercial archaeology as it is a huge initial outlay for the licence, equipment etc, and essentially begins post ex on site where staff may be too pushed for time to properly use the system. May also be difficult on large sites as if there is not a similar number of computors to staff bottlenecks will develop - rain days spring immediately to mind!!
But once you get the hang of it it is a really useful system.
I was a digger at Richborough and Dover, and was initially sceptical of intrasis but after 9 weeks I have to admit I really quite liked the system.
Far from paperless though as all info was put onto context and other sheets first and then imput into the system. But there was a very good system of back-ups and all the sites data was stored both on the network and on a memory stick, and a copy sent back to the office each week so the dangers of loosing all data were actualy far less than with a paper record.
The system took a little getting used to but was really usefull to have all the data easily assessable on site and in one place for quick cross referencing and simple things like looking back at photos etc, and in theory the archive should be ready to be looked at straight away in the office slashing the lagg in site work completion and production of the report.
It would be much easier to have palm tops etc as at the moment you are doubling up on time spent by creating the paper record first.
I dont know how well this would transfer to commercial archaeology as it is a huge initial outlay for the licence, equipment etc, and essentially begins post ex on site where staff may be too pushed for time to properly use the system. May also be difficult on large sites as if there is not a similar number of computors to staff bottlenecks will develop - rain days spring immediately to mind!!
But once you get the hang of it it is a really useful system.