Following our Portable Antiquities Advisory Group meeting, I was asked what levels of detail people are privy to on the Scheme’s database. The below outlines what these account levels can do/see and what geo information is displayed.
Public user – not logged in
The public user level is the most basic of all our levels of access. This gives you access to:
- Finds awaiting validation (denoted by the yellow flag)
- Finds that have been validated and published by our finds advisers (denoted by green flag)
- Low level mapping
- no dots on maps
- findspot to 1km grid square level and slight obfuscation of findspot by randomised subtraction/addition of 10ths of a degree to the degraded findspot
- limited zoom level.
- No access to personal data
- Can add comments but has to fill in reCaptcha
Registered user – most basic level of login
- Finds awaiting validation (denoted by the yellow flag)
- Finds that have been validated and published by our finds advisers (denoted by green flag)
- They can create their own records of their objects and get full mapping capabilities for only these objects which is enhanced over the below low level grade map.
- Low level mapping
- no dots on maps,
- findspot to 1km grid square level and slight obfuscation of findspot by randomised subtraction/addition of 10ths of a degree to the degraded findspot,
- limited zoom level.
- Cannot see maps or retrieve finds by parish for any record with the findspot form’s “to be known as” field completed
- No access to personal data
- Can add comments without having to fill in reCaptchas
- Can add/edit their own records
- Can save searches
Researchers
- Finds awaiting validation (denoted by the yellow flag)
- Finds that have been validated and published by our finds advisers (denoted by green flag)
- Cannot view finds that are still in progress (quarantine/review)
- As above, they can create their own records of their objects and get full mapping capabilities forthese objects.
- High level mapping
- findspot plotted with a dot on the map
- full precision for findspot
- Flickr shapefile outline for parishes
- Access to Scheduled Ancient Monument proximity search
- Full zoom capabilities
- No access to personal data
- Can add/edit their own records
- Enhanced spreadsheet downloads
Historic Environment Officers
- Finds awaiting validation (denoted by the yellow flag)
- Finds that have been validated and published by our finds advisers (denoted by green flag)
- Cannot view finds that are still in progress (quarantine/review)
- As above, they can create their own records of their objects and get full mapping capabilities forthese objects.
- High level mapping
- findspot plotted with a dot on the map
- full precision for findspot
- Flickr shapefile outline for parishes
- Access to Scheduled Ancient Monument proximity search
- Full zoom capabilities
- No access to personal data
- Can add/edit own records
- Enhanced spreadsheet download
- Special download of csv for import into exeGesis HBSMR (if you don’t know what that is, don’t worry!)
Treasure & Finds Liaison Officers
- Finds in quarantine – records that need more data (reminds them to do so!)
- Finds on review – current working versions
- Finds awaiting validation (denoted by the yellow flag)
- Finds that have been validated and published by our finds advisers (denoted by green flag)
- As above, they can create their own records of their objects and get full mapping capabilities forthese objects.
- High level mapping
- findspot plotted with a dot on the map
- full precision for findspot
- Flickr shapefile outline for parishes
- Access to Scheduled Ancient Monument proximity search
- Full zoom capabilities
- Full access to personal data
- Can add/edit own records
- Can edit records made by member, HERO and research users
- Can edit any records they made when working in other counties
- Can edit records made by anyone at their institution
- Enhanced spreadsheet download
- Special download of csv for import into exeGesis HBSMR
Find Advisers
- Finds in quarantine – records that need more data (reminds them to do so!)
- Finds on review – current working versions
- Finds awaiting validation (denoted by the yellow flag)
- Finds that have been validated and published by our finds advisers (denoted by green flag)
- As above, they can create their own records of their objects and get full mapping capabilities forthese objects.
- High level mapping
- findspot plotted with a dot on the map
- full precision for findspot
- Flickr shapefile outline for parishes
- Access to Scheduled Ancient Monument proximity search
- Full zoom capabilities
- Full access to personal data
- Can add/edit own records
- Can edit any records created by any user and can publish finds
- Enhanced spreadsheet download
- Special download of csv for import into exeGesis HBSMR
Admin
Now that would be telling.
[...] Whatever the answer the point remains: archaeologists, for right or wrong, consider the implications of placing fine grained data in the public domain and “Ethical considerations” have been identified as a “barrier” to deposition. However, there appears to be limited guidance as to how to resolve these issues. This means that many archaeologists are re-inventing the wheel. The challenge is to provide some supporting “thing” that makes it easy for individuals and organisations to get to a clear, and hopefully unambiguous, ethical position. Such a “thing” will reduce uncertainty thereby removing one of the barriers to data sharing. The current default position is the equivalent of doing nothing: surely this must change. Supporting “stuff” which is recognised and approved by national heritage organisations and standards bodies will act as important lubricant to help individuals and groups to release data through informal channels. It should be recognised that the relationship between the “citizen”, the archaeologists and heritage data will change: citizen science and citizen data, will play more of a role in heritage than ever before. Hence, a focus on the informal is important: we don’t want more grey data do we? The Portable Antiquities Scheme is the “poster boy” for archaeological approaches to citizen science – although they do have a range of different user access levels. [...]
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