Monthly Archives: June 2015

A Day in the Life: Historic England and OASIS

Since April 2004 when the latest incarnation of the OASIS Form went live I’ve had three main responsibilities as the main OASIS partner at Historic England:

1) Validation & Sign-off of Forms already completed by HERs

2) Training across England for contractors and curators

3) Inputting of the results of HE research

Ten years in and there have been few changes to these three strands; the most notable being the ‘proxy-validation’ of Forms with PDFs attached on behalf of a range of HERs. Figures of completed Forms from last November show that the vast majority of those signed-off by HE came via HER validation, with a handful of proxy Forms.

In April 2014 the total of completed Forms reached 20,000; at the end of 2014 it stood at 22,621 with almost 29,000 reports in the Grey Literature Library. In terms of HE research, OASIS has allowed the first county-wide systematic supply of HE work to HERs, perhaps the most satisfying personal achievement from the first ten years of the project. May I take this opportunity to thanks all my OASIS contacts for their input into the success of the system.

Mark Barratt