Trench One 5: From landscape to Netscape
Trench One 6: Written in stone
Trench One 7: Save our heritage
Trench One 8: Game on
Trench One 9: Time Team on the web
Trench One 10: The great Barbie hoax
Trench One 11: Studying archaeology on the web
Trench One 12: Magical history tour: schools resources on the web

Studying archaeology on the web

From Trench One 11

For the idealists of the internet, one of its underlying principles is the free availability and exchange of information. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it the same way. So while many universities now have extensive web-based learning resources available for their own students, they are less eager to make those resources available more widely.

Some simply aren't geared up to provide open access. Others, mindful of the increasingly competitive nature of higher education provision, jealously guard what may be costly investments in the new technology. At least one British university decided to restrict access to its web-based resources for archaeology teaching, for example, when it discovered that they were being freely and extensively used by other universities and colleges (mostly outside the UK) without any notice or acknowledgement.

This reluctance to offer general public access to university teaching resources may be understandable. What is surprising is that so few universities seem yet to have woken up to the potential of making those resources available for distance learning over the internet. In archaeology, there appears to be just the one: the University of Exeter’s Department of Lifelong Learning (www.ex.ac.uk/dll).

Exeter offers a broad range of archaeology courses on its internet-based distance learning programme. These cover archaeological techniques and all the major periods in British archaeology. Its 'Introduction to British Prehistoric Archaeology' course, for example, covers the prehistory of the British Isles from the end of the Ice Age until the Roman conquest. The department also offers a number of distance learning courses in history and Egyptology.

The courses operate in a variety of ways. Material is made available on the internet; as work books and paper-based materials; and on video and audio tapes. There are also optional day schools and field trips. Credits are awarded on the successful completion of assignments (usually essay-based). These can contribute towards a certificate, diploma or degree and are transferrable to other higher education institutions. Typical costs are £135 for a two-term course, £70 for one term.

Beyond archaeology, the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education runs an advanced diploma in local history via the internet (www.tall.ox.ac.uk/localhistory). This draws on the wide-ranging resources and expertise of Oxford University to offer a new opportunity to study using teaching material over the internet with the full support of a personal tutor. Students receive ‘a practical introduction to the concepts, sources and methods that will make you a confident and proficient researcher of family and community history’. Course materials for the diploma are largely provided over the web. Communications with the tutor and other members of the class also take place over the internet.

In the US, Robert Tykot at the University of Florida’s Department of Anthropology currently teaches two courses by web-based distance learning: 'Introduction to Archaeology' and 'Fantastic Archaeology'. His website, at http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~rtykot/index.html, provides basic information about the courses – which run from the autumn – but you’ll need to sign up for one of them to gain access to the course websites.

For those interested in studying archaeology GCSE or A level courses via the web, College-on-the-Net (www.college-on-the-net.co.uk/) is the collective name of a group of independent academics, lecturers and specialist trainers co-ordinated by Lynn Bright MA. For fees of around £200 at GCSE and £225 at A level, they offer one-year online courses with tutor support. Students receive lesson notes, internet research guidance, a suggested bibliography, self-assessment assignments, tutor-marked assignments and an opportunity to join in selected visits, field trips and artefact-handling days. They are also assigned a personal tutor, who helps steer them through the course and offers coursework advice and guidance.

Other courses are available in Egyptology and local history; and College-on-the-Net says it will be introducing additional ones over the coming year. It is also promoting Michael Brass’s eight-week ‘World Archaeology’ online course (www.users.directonline.net/~archaeology). The first of these, costing £30, ran from October to December 2000. Others are planned for 2001.

Beyond these few examples, the world of archaeology has been slow to take advantage of the new opportunities for learning via the internet. Edinburgh University Archaeology Department is planning the introduction of web-based undergraduate distance learning courses, followed later by postgraduate, but nothing is available yet. Likewise, the Archaeology Data Service's PATOIS – Publications and Archives in Teaching: Online Information Sources – project (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/project/patois/) is working on four web-based teaching packs for archaeology, which will be free of access without need for log-in or password. The packs are being developed in consultation with the academic community and will be pilot tested in the Universities of York, Glasgow, Durham, London and Bournemouth, but they are unlikely to be available before 2002.

Otherwise, opportunities for distance learning in archaeology are very much of the traditional variety. At postgraduate level, Leicester University (www.le.ac.uk/archaeology/distance_learning_temp.htm) offers various distance learning certificates. Non web-based distance learning courses are also offered by Bournemouth, Aberdeen, Exeter, Lancaster and Manchester universities. The Council for British Archaeology's Fact Sheet No 6, Part-time university adult education courses in archaeology, which you can consult online at www.britarch.ac.uk/cba/factsht6.html, provides a comprehensive list, including details of all continuing education departments that offer archaeology courses, whether or not they lead to a qualification.


Finally, I can't let an article on web-based learning in archaeology pass without mentioning Kevin Greene's online companion to his book Archaeology: An Introduction (www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/kevin.greene/wintro/index.htm). In this he provides links to relevant websites to supplement the information contained in the book. So, for example, to accompany the section 'Camps and Caves' in his book, Greene supplies links to websites covering a Palaeolithic site in the Pyrenees; a report on excavations in a cave in the Italian Karst; a Palaeolithic cave in France; and Boxgrove, in Sussex, the largest area of preserved Palaeolithic land surface in Europe.

Greene has also recently introduced an alphabetical index to his site covering everything from aborigines to zoology. Well worth a browse, whether you're pursuing a course – or simply an interest.