Freedom of Information Act response: English Heritage's use of Intrasis

English Heritage have responded to a Freedom of Information Act request concerning the procurement and use of the Intrasis site recording software:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/archaeological_projects_team_use

Provided response (.doc) and exported to .pdf

Some selected text:

EH refuses to disclose the cost of Intrasis software:

While I am able to inform you that the funds to finance EH’s purchase of
Intrasis came from the existing Research Department capital expenditure
budget and that the total procurement cost in 2007-08 was £154,914.16 I
afraid that I am unable to provide you with the software cost. In making
this decision I have relied upon s.43 of the Act:...

The exemption under section 43(2) applies to information the release of
which would affect the commercial interst of any person (including the
public authority holding it). I consider that the disclosure of the
information in question could be prejudicial to the commercial interests of
both the Swedish National Heritage Board (“SNHB”), who developed the
software and EH...

In favour of maintaining the exemption I have considered the arguments
that disclosure could give some parties an unfair advantage over others
who are not privy to the same information. The market in which Intrasis
operate is highly competitive and the software price can affect a
business’s strategies and development plans. Disclosure has the
potential to be adversely affect SWNB’s ability to perform to its potential
in the market place and it would therefore be detrimental to their
commercial interests.

How competitive is the market in which Intrasis operates? I'd be interested to hear some opinions on that one.

The main infrastructure cost for Intrasis was in hardware, the supply of a
number of new laptops to enable data input on site

Laptops? Those big expensive things that break in the mud and don't make phone calls? Sad smiley.

Core staff time is being allocated to this project,
through the training and work of four super-users and the training of other
core staff, but this and the slight increase in casual staff costs will be
offset by the anticipated savings in staff time in assessment and analysis.

On this we agree.

Intrasis is developed by the Swedish National Heritage Board
(Riksantikvarieämbetet), this organisation has a long-term commitment to
the continued use and development of this software package. Our present
contract is for four years, and the use of the package will be the subject of
a post-implementation review after two years.

Let's hope EH goes Open Source in four years!

EH undertook a considerable amount of research into available products
before choosing Intrais. The initial project that looked at our business
needs, processes and data-flows, and which reviewed the range of then-
current alternatives, was known as the Revelation project. That
assessment was published in 2004 (May, S et al, 2004, Revelation: Phase 1
Assessment, CfA report 78/2004). At that time, we reached the conclusion
that none of the commercially-available software met our business needs,
and that we should look to develop our own software solution. The costs of
doing so, however, were seen by 2005 to be prohibitive. The release of the
Intrasis Analysis module provided us with a plan B. We had included Intrasis
in the review of available software, and the Analysis module
offered the possibility that it might now meet our business needs. We
carried out a detailed evaluation of the software, which included a)
checking that there were no other recent releases or developments that
might meet our needs, b) field evaluation by a member of our team taking
part in an excavation in Sweden, and c) the trial use of the software in our
2006 excavation at Carisbrooke Castle, where it was used in parallel with
our existing recording system. From this exhaustive evaluation, we
concluded that while it did not provide a perfect match with our business
and user needs, it was close enough, and accordingly a business case was
developed for its implementation.

One to look up in the library.

Intrasis will only be used for our own fieldwork projects. i.e. those carried
out directly by the Archaeological Projects team. We anticipate that
Intrasis will be used for all (i.e. 100%) of the
Archaeological Projects team fieldwork during the duration of the present
contract, but this will be reviewed in a planned post-Implementation
review that will take place after two years.

Use of Intrasis on all EH ran sites is an impressive goal, but without mention of little things such as data standards (yes, I should have explicitly asked), one has to fear for the long term survivability of the information recovered. Of course the Sweedish National Heritage Board has "has a long-term commitment to the continued use and development of this software package", but how long will this last? I assume that archaeological data stored in Intrasis will have a shorter expected life than archaeological remains in the ground.

EH's response to my questions was almost complete and certainly gave an insight into the spending of public money on the development of new ways of recording England's archaeological record. Questions remain however; was this the best way to spend public money and is it the best option for the archaeology? I believe the answer to both questions is no.

Hugh Corley kindly commented on a previous post of mine and I would be very keen to take up his offer of gaining more information about Intrasis and the Revelation project.

Whatdotheyknow.com has other references to archaeology and is well worth exploring. It's important that people ask public bodies questions concerning the treatment of our irreplaceable archaeological record, especially when the record appears to be placed into a situation of risk.