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VERA: Virtual Environment for Research in Archaeology
Baker, Mark; Grove, Matthew; Fulford, Michael; O'Riordan, Emma; Warwick, Claire; Terras, Melissa; Fisher, Claire; Rains, Mike
VERA: Virtual Environment for Research in Archaeology
Mark Baker, Matthew Grove, Michael Fulford and Emma O'Riordan (University of Reading),
Claire Warwick, Melissa Terras and Claire Fisher (University College London), and
Mike Rains (York Archaeological Trust)
Web Site - http://vera.rdg.ac.uk
Abstract
The VERA (Virtual Environment for Research in Archaeology) project is based on a research excavation of part of the large Roman town at Silchester, which aims to trace the site's development from its origins before the Roman conquest to its abandonment in the fifth century A.D. [1]. The VERA project aims to investigate how archaeologists use Information Technology (IT) in the context of a field excavation, and also for post-excavation analysis. VERA is a two-year project funded by the JISC VRE 2 programme that involves researchers from the University of Reading, University College London, and York Archaeological Trust. The overall aim of the project is to assess and introduce new tools and technologies that can aid the archaeological processes of gathering, recording and later analysis of data on the finds and artefacts discovered. The researchers involved in the project have a mix of skills, ranging from those related to archaeology, and computer science, though to ones involving usability and user assessment.
This paper reports on the status of the research and development work undertaken in the project so far; this includes addressing various programming hurdles, on-site experiments and experiences, and the outcomes of usability and assessment studies.
Technical Programming Aspects
The technical programming development in VERA is based on enhancing the portal that was created during the JISC VRE 1 programme, know as OGHAM, which is based on a MySQL backend, with a dynamic interface based on PHP, JavaScript, and AJAX. This original portal was developed using an Agile programming approach that ensured user involvement, and incremental software delivery. Within the VERA project it was decided to embed the original OGHAM portal within a portal framework using standard JSR-168 portlets, which will ensure that it can be reused within a number of standard portal frameworks. The VERA project is using GridSphere [2] as its development portal framework. An examination of the original OGHAM source code showed that it was necessary to make a number changes, these included updating some global variables and adding extra code for security purposes so that the system would work with a more secure version of PHP. It had been previously decided that instead of adapting the OGHAM portal code to work within a JSR-168 portlet, we would consume the portal with a portlet using bridging technologies. This approach has a number of advantages, which includes not forking the original application code, and not having to support any code migrated into a portlet.
A common issue for current portal frameworks is how best to make use of existing Web-based software. There are a huge number of Web applications that are used extensively and have had considerable investment in their development; the problem is the majority were designed to act as stand-alone web-based applications and not be used within a restrictive portal framework. There has been some work undertaken to provide a way to embed incompatible software within a portal; the technique is known as portlet-bridging [3]. We have already investigated portlet-bridging technologies in a previous project [4] and this had highlighted a number of issues that needed to be overcome, which included problems such as coping with the complex HTML and the JavaScript used in many web applications, which do not always render correctly when they are bridged. For this reason we have produced what we call the Recycle Bridge [5], which was designed specifically for complex web-based applications. The technical details describing the Recycle Bridge and how it consumes an application will be described in the full paper, but it is fairly simple, the main technical challenge was how to elegantly combine the application's security with that of the portal so that it provides single sign on.
To show that the Recycle Bridge works correctly we have tested it by consuming both MediaWiki [6] that is used by Wikipedia, and WordPress [7] that is used for blogging, into a portal framework. It should be noted that both these applications are used by hundreds of thousands of users and have been continuously developed over the last five years at considerable cost. As mentioned earlier, the only coding required to consume both these applications using the Recycle Bridge is the security binding, it should be noted that both MediaWiki and WordPress have security APIs that can be used for this purpose.
The technical programming that is currently underway within the VERA project entails a collaborative effort with the VRE for the Study of Documents and Manuscripts project [8] that is hosted at Oxford University, which involves developing a mechanism that allows cross database searches. From a users point of view this would allow an archaeologist at Reading to search through the Oxford database for document or manuscripts that contain related research information. This part of the project involves solving a number of issues including generating the appropriate metadata, creating a common schema, overcoming security issues and producing an easy to use interface. This work will be discussed in detail in the full paper.
Usability Studies
The Silchester site is used as a research and training excavation that has been taking place for the last eleven years. The actual excavation takes places annually in July and August for about six-weeks each year and includes a range of archaeologists ranging from very experienced ones through to novices. The annual excavation allows us to: study the use of advanced IT in an archaeological context; investigate the tasks carried out within an excavation; ascertain how and where technologies can be used to facilitate information flow within a dig; and inform the developers of the user portal how it may be adapted to allow the integrated use of the tools in the trench itself and for post dig analysis.
To ensure that the software and tools developed within the VERA project are appropriate for the archaeologists that will use them we are engaging all the on-site team and the researchers who undertake post excavation analysis in the usability studies. One of the first such activities undertaken was a diary study that was used to gather information about the work patterns of different archaeological roles and the way that they are supported by both digital and analogue technologies. Diary studies enable us to understand how people usually work and can be used to identify areas that might be improved by the adoption of new working practices or technologies [9]. The studies have been used to understand the use of IT, and to study the work of humanities scholars [10], however, this is the first use of this method to study field archaeology that we are aware of.
During diary studies, participants were asked to keep a detailed record of their work over a short period of time. The participant records the activity that they are undertaking, what technologies they are using and any comments they have on problems or the progress of their work. This helps us to understand the patterns of behaviour that archaeologists exhibit, and how the technologies can support this behaviour. We also obtained contextual data about participants using a simple questionnaire. This produced information about the diary survey participants (role, team, status) and their experience of using the technologies on site. A cross section of people representing different types of work and levels of experience were chosen. For example, we included inexperienced and experienced excavators; members of the finds team, who process the discoveries made on site; and those who produce plans of the site and visitor centre staff.
This paper will present the findings from the study, covering various issues such as the attitude of archaeologists to the diary studies, previous and present experiences of using technologies on research excavations, the effect of familiarity of technologies on uptake and use, and resistance and concerns regarding the use of technologies within an archaeological dig. We also evaluate specific technologies for this purpose, such as the PDAs, and Digital Pens that were used on-site and ascertain how technologies fit into existing workflow models to aid archaeologists in tracking information alongside their physical tasks.
In this paper we will also report on the VERA Winter Workshop and how this event was used to help us in understanding the needs and requirements of the archaeological community. The workshop involved discussions on use of the existing system, usability testing of new developments to the system, hands on exercises, interviews, and group discussions.
References
- [1] Clarke, A., Fulford, M.G., Rains, M. and K. Tootell. (2007). Silchester Roman Town Insula IX: The Development of an Urban Property c. AD 40-50 - c. AD 250. Internet Archaeology, 21. http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue21/silchester_index.html
- [2] GridSphere, http://www.gridsphere.org/
- [3] Portlet Bridge, http://www.portletbridge.org/
- [4] Sakai Demonstrator Project, http://tyne.dl.ac.uk/Sakai/
- [5] Recycle Bridge, http://vera.rdg.ac.uk/software
- [6] MediaWiki, http://www.mediawiki.org/]
- [7] Wordpress, http://wordpress.org
- [8] VRE-SDM, http://bvreh.humanities.ox.ac.uk/VRE-SDM
- [9] O'Hara, K., Smith, F., Newman, W., & Sellen, A. (1998). Student readers' use of library documents: implications for library technologies. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. Los Angeles, CA. New York, NY, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley
- [10] Rimmer, J., Warwick, C., Blandford, A., Buchanan, G., Gow, J. (2008) An examination of the physical and the digital qualities of humanities research. Information Processing and Management (Forthcoming).
