25th November 2008, 04:02 PM
I am saddened to see such resentment against this particular bursary and would like to comment and also clarify some misunderstandings. I think it is a fantastic opportunity and yes, it does require some prior experience.
First of all, at nearly ?14,900 I don't think it is an exploitative job at all. And certainly not a "survey monkey" or "data slave". Making the assumption that this were so is rather far fetched, lets say. As stated in the original advert, I am very happy to email anyone the further particulars. The excerpt posted here doesn't really do the job justice.
Although the trainee will also undertake practical geophysics work and process resulting data, this is nothing that cannot be learned elsewhere. We teach this in our own UG and PG degree courses (the latter also includes the underpinning physics), part of it is included in other degree programmes and it is embedded in commercial archaeological practice.
Instead, the Bursary offers something new that is not readily available: training in the thorny issue of data documentation and archiving. Some of you may remember my Guide to Good Practice on this subject (we will start work on a new edition next year) and you may already have despaired yourself over the problems of re-using somebody elseâs data. Thatâs what this Workplace Bursary is about.
And that is also the reason why the person needs to have some understanding of geophysics; otherwise it is virtually impossible to get to the archiving bit within a year. Having the Time Team Geophysical Archive to work on is a fantastic opportunity. And yes, some funding would be good - I am well aware of this, believe me!
As is usual these days the specifications are separated into required and desirable. And yes, the desirable expertise is quite far reaching: the more the better, and will help to get to the archiving more quickly. I thought the "required" qualities are at a reasonable level but I do take the point that what you learn in a basic UG degree may not at all be comparable with on-the-job training gained over many years. However, catching all eventualities in a short advert seems impossible to me. I would be pleased to receive further comments as to how to rephrase this for our next job advert.
So the bottom line is: this is not a Workplace Bursary to train people from scratch as to how to do archaeological geophysics â there are places already to learn this, including our own MSc Archaeological Prospection (four funded places, if I may add this plug here!). Instead this is an outstanding opportunity to learn something new: how best to document and archive archaeological geophysics data.
I will be very interested in further posts on this forum!
Armin
A.Schmidt@Bradford.ac.uk
First of all, at nearly ?14,900 I don't think it is an exploitative job at all. And certainly not a "survey monkey" or "data slave". Making the assumption that this were so is rather far fetched, lets say. As stated in the original advert, I am very happy to email anyone the further particulars. The excerpt posted here doesn't really do the job justice.
Although the trainee will also undertake practical geophysics work and process resulting data, this is nothing that cannot be learned elsewhere. We teach this in our own UG and PG degree courses (the latter also includes the underpinning physics), part of it is included in other degree programmes and it is embedded in commercial archaeological practice.
Instead, the Bursary offers something new that is not readily available: training in the thorny issue of data documentation and archiving. Some of you may remember my Guide to Good Practice on this subject (we will start work on a new edition next year) and you may already have despaired yourself over the problems of re-using somebody elseâs data. Thatâs what this Workplace Bursary is about.
And that is also the reason why the person needs to have some understanding of geophysics; otherwise it is virtually impossible to get to the archiving bit within a year. Having the Time Team Geophysical Archive to work on is a fantastic opportunity. And yes, some funding would be good - I am well aware of this, believe me!
As is usual these days the specifications are separated into required and desirable. And yes, the desirable expertise is quite far reaching: the more the better, and will help to get to the archiving more quickly. I thought the "required" qualities are at a reasonable level but I do take the point that what you learn in a basic UG degree may not at all be comparable with on-the-job training gained over many years. However, catching all eventualities in a short advert seems impossible to me. I would be pleased to receive further comments as to how to rephrase this for our next job advert.
So the bottom line is: this is not a Workplace Bursary to train people from scratch as to how to do archaeological geophysics â there are places already to learn this, including our own MSc Archaeological Prospection (four funded places, if I may add this plug here!). Instead this is an outstanding opportunity to learn something new: how best to document and archive archaeological geophysics data.
I will be very interested in further posts on this forum!
Armin
A.Schmidt@Bradford.ac.uk