Virtual Research Environments

Silchester Roman Town: A VRE for Archaeology

University of Reading
York Archaeological Trust

The aim of this project is to demonstrate new directions in which archaeology can be taken by employing e-Research. The project will set up an online conferencing facility, provisionally entitled “Ogham” (Online Group Historical and Archaeological Matrix), which will provide the excavators with real-time access to experts in diffuse disciplines, irrespective of their geographical location. The iterative research process, and flow of ideas, will therefore be greatly enhanced. The VRE will also provide for onsite data collection and digitisation, and allow cross-domain storage and searching of all data thus gathered. We will begin by conducting a comprehensive scoping study of user needs and system capabilities, to be completed by March 2005: fundamental to this will be an interdisciplinary expert seminar, to be held in early January. The first phase will be deployed in the summer excavation season in 2005, and a refined and tested version in 2006.

Contact

Mike Fulford (Project Director)

Mike Rains (Project Assistant)

Department of Archaeology
University of Reading
Whiteknights, Box 227
Reading RG6 6AB

http://www.silchester.reading.ac.uk/vre

Following on from this project is a JISC VRE2 project, VERA http://vera.rdg.ac.uk/

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