00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to the architect podcast and I'm talking to Michael and Shelby and I just said a whole bunch of stuff right? at the end of the last segment about you know how nothing is standardized in data collection even amongst agencies and to see her m firms of a particular region. Do you guys have any comments on that. 00:18.56 Shelby A Manney Well I agree um now so when I when I was in c un I did I I managed projects pretty much all over the country. So an 100 you know or more archeologists at 1 time and i. 00:21.51 archpodnet No No. No. Nice. 00:35.93 Shelby A Manney Had this same you know purpose in mind when I when I did it for Crm and it's astounding. How even if I dictate it right and started developing some of the tools that that Michael um I and and the team have been continuing on developing. But they still won't do it and even in agency archeology. Um, it's not a matter of how much you're paying them. It really is a culture so the hardest part for us like I was alluding to in the last segment is not 1 of um difficulty. It's a behavioral change. What do we do as archeologists to change our mind our mindset from you know this is good enough or this is how it's done to how can we do it better. There's a real problem if as I've studied and lots of other people study different parts of archeology. We go. 01:14.81 archpodnet Um. 01:32.52 Shelby A Manney We ask biologists for their for their data and we ask you know human you know, doctors or etc for their data I have yet to have anybody from an outside field ever. Ask me for my data. Why? um. 01:46.53 archpodnet Ah, yeah, indeed Michael. 01:48.84 Michael Heilen Yeah, well if you put you know I think there's a kind of an old adage you put 10 archeologists in the room and you have 10 different opinions and the I think. 01:59.40 archpodnet Um. 02:04.34 Michael Heilen There's always ah, an interest in you know, being able having the leeway to do something differently or have some flexibility but like as we discussed earlier. We collect a lot of the same data routinely just in in different ways and even ah as you point out when people are are. 02:24.21 Michael Heilen Confronted with ah with a form that they have to fill out they want to they want to change the form even when it's the official form. Ah, but I kind of tend to think that sort of going back to the to the to the primary observation issue is that we need to start having. 02:27.20 archpodnet Yeah. 02:29.28 Shelby A Manney And. 02:43.36 Michael Heilen Um, ways that that archaeologists and organizations are submitting their data at the you know the the most primary level into a system that. That sort of enforces at least sort of a standard ontology a level of standardization that makes them already or at least increases very strongly the prospects of them being interoperable and reusable and without. 03:12.86 archpodnet Right. 03:15.65 Shelby A Manney Yes. 03:18.34 Michael Heilen With that if you just there's an extreme amount of resistance as Shelby pointed out for people to change how they do things and they don't want to do often. Ah, attempt not to to get with. Program in a sense when they're required to do so they they tend to subvert that and but if if we start placing requirements I think especially in crm on say you know contract firms. Every project has to have a data management plan. 03:35.10 archpodnet Um. 03:52.28 Michael Heilen And it has to fulfill certain requirements and and and if we build and is enforced. Yeah, and if we start to have like it would have to be a collective thing obviously but come up with ah a sort of more centralized cohesive and integrative. 03:54.60 Shelby A Manney And it's important. 03:55.39 archpodnet Yeah, yeah. 04:11.22 Michael Heilen Data standard that people actually are required to submit their data into digitally then maybe we we would start to get to a place where we can start to shed all this these variety of things. 04:23.40 archpodnet Okay. 04:26.22 Shelby A Manney And we would have to do that at and I can do if we attack it at the I'm interested in archeology phase so sort of college and in pre-college phases and and where you have courses on data collection methods not just a field school or or whatever in. And so they get introduced to these systems as a way of doing things as opposed to what happens now it seems like if there is a Crm course in college. Um, you know you you learn about the laws etc. But where is the data lifecycle management. Where is that part is I think the statistics and everything else you might get but where is data ethics where is that which happens in lots of other fields. A lot of other fields. Why don't we have something like that so that we're not battling these misconceptions instead those up and coming archaeologists. 05:12.80 archpodnet I'm sure. 05:22.97 Shelby A Manney You know we'll have a voice and be able to push you know pushies things through and anyway I think that that's kind of the the entry point at which we decide to do this and 1 other thing is that we're not saying that. At the more refined levels that we wouldn't want to you know at at the smaller scales that we wouldn't want to allow for interpretation or or flexibility in the ontologies. Um, what we're saying is that we have to have basic the base amount of data the baseline data. Needs to be systematic needs to be collected systematically handled systematically just the additional things and also on the additional things we need to add the coding sheets and and reference points at. 06:00.47 archpodnet Rent. 06:14.61 Shelby A Manney How did we come to this conclusion based on the base data that we that we collected. 06:19.65 archpodnet That's well said, um and and addressing addressing sort of the you know teaching the new generation coming up right? and and teaching them the right way so to speak so they can come in with a voice I know just because of the way that the world works this will get better as ah. I mean there's no way to say it. But as the old guard retires or leaves the field and the new people come in this is going to get better. But I can tell you um I was in grad school when the first ipad came out in April of 2010 and I bought it within a week of it coming out now. It's like this thing is going to be a game changer I need to do this and. I was in a shallow geophysics class over the summer and you know we're doing field data collection now again you know this old technology now because it was the first iteration and it got real hot in those Georgia summers and I had to put in the van sometimes to cool it down but that that is a problem was getting better. But either way I had so much resistance. Trying to collect this data that we were doing digitally right and then coming into the field into archeology after that I was in sm before that and I went back into sm after that I tried working with Crm firms that I was you know a field tech and then a crew chief and then eventually a project manager at and saying hey. You know we're going to do all these things we're still going to record the way you want to but can we just do it on tablets. Can we do it on you know something and and find out a ah ah standardized way to to keep people from coming up with their own things come up with dropdown menus. You know start to standardize some of these things but allowing room for creativity and I ended up having to start my own company because the resistance was so high. 07:51.68 Shelby A Manney And. 07:52.65 archpodnet To any sort of collection like that whether it was the standardization or just the technology to begin with people saying Ipads will never work in the field and people still say that. But. 08:01.18 Shelby A Manney Well we stories for you on that one I had 12 brand new beautiful ipads and we developed a survey one 2 3 we have r one that actually do this and we've got these new ipeds have lidar and et cetera on them. They sat my bought them now 3 times but. 08:08.70 archpodnet Um, yeah. 08:18.90 archpodnet Enough. 08:21.93 Shelby A Manney Unused in a crm firm for a long time and so good news is that Michael and a new archaeologist a young archeologist that we just hired who's a data enthusiast doesn't have a lot of experience but he said the word data and I said the word hired. 08:24.30 archpodnet Um, yeah. 08:33.45 archpodnet With it. 08:40.49 Shelby A Manney Ah, are going to go out next week um and and pilot a ti are you the tier you system I'm trying to get started for 8 years are looking at things in a gridlike pattern at various scales and we're going to test out Ipads and so. 08:40.91 archpodnet Ah, nice. 08:48.40 archpodnet M. 08:58.52 Shelby A Manney And other devices to kind of do a baseline to see which ones work better in the field and can we actually get better resolution of data and does it cost more That's a misnomer and I still think it is if you're wondering if if anybody's done any real research on that Jeff Alsul and also Michael there several articles. On actual comparisons between you know, doing walking surveys versus doing something on you know, digital platform and and using a tier you system. So we're going to try it out again. Very systematically. We did regular survey work. You know the pedestrian can you see your neighbor 1 Um. 09:36.22 archpodnet Um. 09:37.91 Shelby A Manney And we've done a complete total survey of that we're going to go back and try targeted samples to compare whether it does cocks more and whether the data actually gives us better quality data for land management purposes. 09:52.21 archpodnet Um, yeah I I can tell you after over 10 years of collecting data digitally in the field and using almost exclusively ipads but branching out into some Android devices. Occasionally you know, just my two cents on that is sometimes. It's not quicker. In fact, a lot of times. It's not quicker to collect digitally in the field because if you're working with ah a paper form that's got a grid and you just have to make tick marks. There's no difference between doing that on a piece of paper and doing it on an ipad and sometimes even the typing is slower on an ipad so it it may actually take longer in some cases. 10:25.12 Shelby A Manney You. 10:26.29 archpodnet To collect the data in the field. However, the time savings on the backend are just are just massive I mean absolutely massive. You're not reading my left handed chicken scratch that I'm dragging my hand across my right in the rain Notebook with my left hand you know you're not reading any of that and trying to have those errors of transcription you're you're at least getting. 10:32.00 Shelby A Manney Brex. 10:45.76 Shelby A Manney Um. 10:46.23 archpodnet Something That's a little more homogenized and readable and then in some cases you just tidied up a little bit and export a form and you're done. You know? So yeah. 10:53.71 Shelby A Manney And that's exactly what But when I meant that it comparisons it through the whole lifecycle the project and one of the arguments that I've had is that people are like it's going to take so long and I had you know them I had certain archeologistologists come up with how long more. Do you think we made a cost estimate. Not. 11:08.61 archpodnet Right. 11:12.48 Shelby A Manney Ah, pay for it to take a bit longer there now. What I said was okay now how much does an archaeologist cost especially to the federal government or a government or client how much per hour does a archaeological tech and maybe a crew chief and maybe a field director if they're out there. How much do they cost an hour okay 11:20.00 archpodnet Ah. 11:29.77 Shelby A Manney How much does that project director archaeologist and that pi cost now or that as you're looking at the chicken scratch and everything that you're saying wild leing sites and making up stuff that they don't know because they couldn't read it. How much does that person cost now. Let's do the math. So for every 3 men crew is maybe. 11:41.37 archpodnet Brett. 11:48.70 Shelby A Manney An hour of a Pi or Pi Director's time. So if I can if it cost me just one extra hour I'm still saving an hour there. So there you go, you know that's my ah, it's you know my hypothesis and we'll see. 11:52.40 archpodnet Um. 12:00.18 archpodnet Brett. 12:08.59 Shelby A Manney I've got 8 years now of you know how much these projects have cost. So let's see what what comes out of it and even if it doesn't can I manage to land so say it was even made a little bit more to do it this way because we're also asking them to be more refined in in what they're doing. Ah. 12:10.52 archpodnet M. 12:23.59 archpodnet Right. 12:27.45 Shelby A Manney Can I manage this land better can I help in my case Mission Readiness So can do I know enough that if a soldier called you have to do a critical training or there's an explosion that happened or whatever happens on our facilities that I can't talk about whatever that stuff is and I need to make a split second decision. There's a fire coming on our. 12:45.98 archpodnet Oh. 12:46.57 Shelby A Manney On a northern installation can I make that split second decision based on chicken scratch and waiting for the report. No I can't I don't and they're like well it's not consulted and and concurred on by you know by Shippo and I'm like so we're just going to let everything burn I guess or whatever or it's look. 12:53.63 archpodnet Right. 13:02.54 archpodnet Yeah. 13:06.53 Shelby A Manney I can tell them to move their actions somewhere else quickly or to create fire breaks if I at least had the data in real time which can be done on tablets and devices like this I can make decisions and have them out in field. The emergency response people out in the field respond quickly to protect the sites. I cannot do that in its current format nor will I ever be able to do that because it's gonna take them another six months to get me a report like so anyway I'm real passionate about it. Sorry if I seem aggressive. It's very frustrated. It's been forty years you know nonsense. It seems so. 13:31.59 archpodnet Ah. 13:40.49 archpodnet I hear you? yeah totally um, you don't go ahead. Michael. 13:41.37 Michael Heilen Yeah, well just I mean on top of that I mean when you're collecting in ah in a digital format. You know with the you can also collect all kinds of data in the background about the user. All the data are linked to the user maybe to The. Precise location the time. Um, there's all kinds of other data that you can be collecting that kind of enrich and help to validate your your data set that the that the field crew don't even have to think about. 14:00.30 archpodnet Me. 14:03.94 Shelby A Manney Um, yeah. 14:12.00 archpodnet Right. 14:12.68 Shelby A Manney Or improve improve their method say okay this person is walking at this pace and you know whatever and at this time of day, etc, etc and it seems like there's richer data through time. So if we collected it seasonally which I've been trying to do along with like a. Ah, fixedwing and geophysical data now I Great All got several different things going on now I can integrate all of those different types of data at the same scales and and see you know how we can better manage that land protect the land. You know, avoid impacts or etc. 14:32.78 archpodnet Oh yeah. 14:52.42 Shelby A Manney So without like Michael was saying it's collecting all this data about the user about detecture all kinds of other things that can influence and bias. We don't really have access to except for the chicken scratch. You were talking about praise on thing it says it's hot today. Um, you know I see some plants. 15:11.50 Shelby A Manney It's not real sunny if they write that nearly teach you to do that. But yeah I don't know how do people actually still write. You know, kind of the environment that they're that they're operating in. 15:18.73 archpodnet Sure? yeah, you know I'm interested to going back to the going back to the issue of archeological advances. You know I mentioned the Nevada Imax form well some people don't even remember that imax stands for inner mountain. Antiquities computer system I believe and that was a whole mountain region with many states recording basically on the same forms and I don't know how long it took for them to all end up with their own versions of the imax form but it wasn't very long right? and then you know Nevadas got their own Utah's doesn't even call it that anymore and Nevada actually dramatically changed theirs a few years ago from ah, a longer complicated form to basically a short form which I think was a mistake because they had a lot of nice little boxes that you could fill in and now you just kind of have to know everything and new people in the field just don't and they might miss some stuff but either way. 16:10.91 Shelby A Manney And you. 16:13.20 archpodnet Looking at 1 of your articles here. It looks like the Blm's trying to bring this kind of thing back with the national cultural resources information system. What can you tell us about that in the last couple minutes of the segment. 16:23.40 Shelby A Manney I'll let Michael talk about that. Ah, we're trying to work with all kinds of federal landowners because federal land are de site from Texas you know covers the majority of the land. So Mike has done a lot of these sort of let's help get data looking better in se safe or let him have all that. 16:29.56 archpodnet Right. 16:30.81 Michael Heilen And. 16:39.17 Michael Heilen You know? ah well the nick crims the the system that the Blm um has developed was developed because of some of the problems that we're talking about. They cannot access data in order to make decisions quickly and and and reliably and. 16:47.28 archpodnet Living. 16:55.14 Michael Heilen A number of years ago. There was a requirement put forth by the blm that the Blm's offices had to make travel management plans to plan how different roads and. Other pathways are being used or the lands that they manage they cross jurisdictions go across states and they realized they didn't really have the data to do that and so and they they needed to access these data that are most of the the data that the system integrates are from. 17:19.76 archpodnet Um. 17:28.25 Michael Heilen Whole series of different state databases. Ah that are individually maintained. They all have different formats and schemas all kinds of things like that. But. 17:42.75 Michael Heilen What they did is it ah over many years of meeting all kinds of consultation with agency, personnel and shippos and database administrators they they finally came to the agreement to be able to. To get the data from the different ship os into their system. They have to in order to do that. They have to create um complex python scripts that translate extract and translate the data from the database into their. Standardized common data model and then those data are hosted integrated data are hosted in an enterprise portal that the Blm administers that allows them to be able to. Ah. 18:19.33 archpodnet Mouth. 18:37.76 Michael Heilen See all the sites that have recorded the the project areas do some basic modeling within the interface that allows them to predict based on topographic and hydrological and other variables. The likelihood of of archaeological sites in any of the areas they're looking at and and also summarized. You know I'd like say draw up Polygon of area of interest that they they need to. To make decisions about summarize the the history of investigations and what's been found. There. How much has been surveyed and that sort of thing but that is a tremendous effort that they had to do over many years and still the data that they're able to, um. 19:17.46 archpodnet Okay, so. 19:31.80 Michael Heilen Integrate is actually you know fairly high level summary data about sites and projects. It doesn't include all the many observations that went into those you know interpretations. 19:45.38 archpodnet Sure Well that sounds like ah sounds like a massive effort like you said and I've got some other questions around that sort of I guess data importing and um consolidation and we'll talk about that on the other side of the break back in a minute.