30th November 2010, 10:30 AM
vulpes Wrote:It is a nice idea to peer review all publication reports, whoever's it was (Dinosaur's probably), but you did flesh it out and suggest how it could work in this context Odinn, thanks. :face-approve: But I think we'll probably have to stick with the system we have for now, for better or worse. Regional (and national / subject) research agenda haven't been raised much yet in this discussion but greater use of these by all concerned should help.Would it be defensible to include peer-review as part of the report-checking process in the brief? Is there anything in PPS5 or the legislation that would preclude that?
Research agendas are fine as far as they go, but they need to be living documents to take account of developments in the area. My experience has shown that they tend to get written and then not revisited (if at all) for ages. I have used them for a variety of projects, but they tended to be ignored for the smaller stuff. Even the curators have only really bothered with them when discussing larger excavations. Sometimes it is hard to know how to apply them to commercial work too, because the whole site is going to be destroyed: do you try to record everything, remembering that you will not get a chance to revisit the site after it is built on, or only focus on the areas that the research agenda says is important? They do help to focus the fieldwork once you have the site open and know what is there though, which means that you can target specific important areas for extra attention.
Are there any examples of research agendas that are regularly updated? The concept of a living document online that is amended regularly would be great, but where would the money come from?
'Reality,' sa molesworth 2, 'is so unspeakably sordid it make me shudder.'