Historic England has commissioned a consultancy, Helyx, to carry out a review of geospatial standards and assess geospatial skills and knowledge within the historic environment sector in England. The overall aim is to improve the way in which geospatial heritage information is created, handled and shared. The work will contribute to broader initiatives to streamline workflows and decision-making in the planning system. The need to develop geospatial standards and a strategy to implement them across the historic environment sector was identified as a key priority in a recent internal Historic England review of the Heritage Information Access Simplified (HIAS) programme. A draft three-year performance support plan to support the sector will be produced following analysis of the results.
Helyx have prepared a questionnaire, which you are invited to contribute to.
The link to the questionnaire is here: https://form.simplesurvey.com/f/s.aspx?s=6ef0ead3-a31a-484b-82bb-fc16d47332e9
The questions have been designed to capture detailed information about participants’ experience, use and understanding of geospatial standards, as well as the geospatial skills and knowledge held within the historic environment sector.
The results will be of huge potential value to a range of organisations and individuals, from commercial archaeological units, historic building experts, surveyors and planners, to curatorial staff. The results will be used by Historic England to inform work on standards, commissioning projects and supporting a sector-wide skills programme.
Please be reassured that all responses are anonymous. The link to the questionnaire will remain open until Monday 7 February.
If you wish to get in touch offline to ask any questions about the survey, you can contact the survey administrators using the following email addresses: h.papworth@helyx.co.uk and/or m.jestico@helyx.co.uk
Finally, there will also be a live discussion in the Forum area of the Historic Environment Community on the Heritage Workspace Knowledge Hub, on Thursday 27 January, so do take the opportunity to come along and ask any questions of the project team. You will need a Heritage Workspace account to participate, and you can sign up for one here: Heritage Workspace Home - Knowledge Hub (khub.net).
