Wednesday 24 June 2015

Didn't we do well?


'Top Secret Clemency', the
public face of the Lava-PAS
"Now, after we've done the training bunnies, aunty Clemency wants you all to fill in this form, it's not difficult, just tick all the boxes, can you?".



"Oh, we did do well didn't we? Excellent".

That's it then ('PASt Explorers Training Programme Commences'  posted on ), "Eleven of the Scheme’s West Midlands self-recorders and in-house volunteers attended the training session to learn how to record finds onto the PAS database with the two PASt Explorers Project Officers, Helen Geake and Rob Webley" and "15 finders and volunteers, most of whom were new to recording archaeological finds with the PAS" in Taunton, Somerset. They all had "great fun" and are ready to substitute for the FLOs in all but the Liaison and Finds work.

And I see that before I've even looked at it, Clemency Cooper (Outreach Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme's PASt Explorers project) has blocked me from her Twitter account. That's the public face of the PAS for you, an Outreach Officer in Hiding.

Now this is how they propose creating a karaoke FLO, just five short training modules:
Module 1: general introduction to the work of the PAS and the Treasure Act.
Module 2: database recording
Module 3: the basics of digital finds photography
Module 4: finds image manipulation (sic)
Module 5: finds identification (just one?)
.... and nothing else, five modules. 
What academic value has a database containing data entered by somebody whose sole qualifications are having done this five-module course? Note that the one field where the Lava-PAS scored less than brilliant feedback in  the opinion survey above was "lack of time" [to cover the topic properly]. Bonkers.

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