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Guides to Good Practice

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The Guides to Good Practice provide comprehensive guidance for creating, managing, and preserving digital archaeological data across the entire project lifecycle. Developed by the ADS and partners since 1996, these guides address the needs of archaeological agencies, project creators, and data management professionals.

Learn more about the Guides.

Contents

Digital Archiving and the Project Lifecycle: An Introduction to these Guides

Originally created as two introductory sections, this material has been combined into a single introduction to the Guides to Good Practice. The guide explores key topics including how to use the guides, the fundamentals of digital archiving, strategic approaches, planning for digital data creation, project documentation and metadata management, data storage and dissemination strategies, copyright and intellectual property considerations, and an exploration of the OAIS (Open Archival Information System) reference model.

Personal Data in Archaeological Archives

This Guide was developed to resolve misunderstandings and address concerns identified during a series of consultative workshops that explored how the implementation of GDPR was affecting the archaeological sector. The Guide provides basic advice for those working with archaeological data, such as whether the data is personal or sensitive (or both), and how this affects how the data should be handled in different scenarios relating to particular roles.

Basic ‘Components’: Common Digital Objects

The following guides provide an overview of digitally archiving the most commonly used file types encountered in archaeological projects.. These guides cover the types of digital archives that are created as part of standard archaeological fieldwork and post-excavation processes, as well as make recommendations about how these digital files should be archived. While focused on individual file types, the guides recognise that these files are commonly components of much larger project workflows involving numerous other techniques and, as such, link through to the later technique-based chapters where relevant.

Data Collection and Fieldwork

This section deals with data produced by commonly used techniques such as geophysical, marine, and UAV survey, laser scanning, photogrammetry, and dendrochronology. The techniques themselves are discussed in detail, alongside data types commonly produced and documentation, metadata, and long-term preservation requirements.

Data Analysis and Visualisation

The guides in this section focus on techniques and software commonly used to analyse or create data beyond fieldwork. These guides take a detailed look at the techniques and data types at the point of creation before considering documentation, metadata requirements and approaches to long-term preservation.

    • Gillings, M., Wise, A., Halls, P., Lock, G., Miller, P., Phillips, G., Ryan, N., & Wheatley, D. (2011). GIS Guide to Good Practice. Archaeology Data Service. https://doi.org/10.5284/VK98-3372
    • Eiteljorg II, H., Fernie, K., Huggett, J., Robinson, D., Thomason, B., Dobson, S., & Lancia, R. (2011). CAD: A Guide to Good Practice. Archaeology Data Service. https://doi.org/10.5284/K5HD-HJ61
    • Trognitz, M., Niven, K., & Gilissen, V. (2016). 3D Models in Archaeology: A Guide to Good Practice. Archaeology Data Service. https://doi.org/10.5284/Q1SS-0331

Preparing and Depositing Your Archive

For current guidance on preparing and depositing data with individual repositories please consult their respective websites, these may include:

Case Studies

The case studies and guides below have been created as the result of a number of collaborative projects, work placements, and visits to ADS. Where the subject matter is related, these case studies and guides are also linked from the Table of Contents section of the relevant Guides listed above.

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