SASSA's target audience are commercial field archaeologists for whom, it is hoped, SASSA will function both as a decision support aid for use in the field and as a training and continuing professional development (CPD) tool in the office. In order to ensure that SASSA meets the needs of commercial archaeologists, a user advisory group was assembled consisting of representatives from archaeology units and curatorial posts across the UK. The advisory group was consulted at key points throughout the development process and many of its members hosted demonstration and testing sessions.
The potential role of SASSA in university teaching, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, should also not be ignored, particularly as these students will become the archaeological workforce of the future.
The benefit of a web-based system is its international presence. The academic advisory group contains representatives from Europe, US, Canada and Australia. The field tool and many of the case studies that 'seed' SASSA are drawn from the development team's UK-based experience. However, it is hoped that through the wiki and the addition of further case studies, the international flavour of SASSA will develop over time. Alternative language pages and additional decision-support trees aimed at questions and soils in different environments could potentially also be developed by users as an active SASSA community develops.
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URL: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue25/4/1.3.html
Last updated: Mon Dec 15 2008