Internet Archaeology is an independent, fully refereed academic online journal, which is published by the Council for British Archaeology and hosted by the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. The journal was founded in 1995 and publishes international research that utilise the potential of electronic publication.
As well as the recently purchased Internet Archaeology Archive 1996-2006 JISC Collections has purchased a licence to Internet Archaeology through to the end of 2012 on behalf of UK higher and further education institutions, which means they can now have access to rich multimedia scholarly content completely free of charge. Not just for the study of archaeology, the articles and multimedia content from this resource can be used across a wide range of subject disciplines from the biological and earth sciences to the performing arts and history.
With the provision of access to content through this licence, Internet Archaeology has started to move towards an Open Access model. It is hoped that this transition is coupled with an increase in revenue from publications subventions (from research councils, commercial developers and state funding agencies) for a truly sustainable future. Internet Archaeology will be providing JISC with regular reports on progress.
Content description
For details of the available issues, please see http://intarch.ac.uk/issues.html
Content ranges from excavation reports (incorporating text, photographs, data, drawings, reconstruction diagrams, interpretations) and analysis of large data sets along with the data itself, to visualisations and applications of information technology in archaeology. The aim of this resource is to provide new avenues to present and engage with archaeological research by making use of the huge potential of a web delivered publication to present archaeological research in unique and exciting ways, such as full colour images, video footage, virtual reality models, searchable data sets and interactive mapping.
N.B. the licence for the current content will include all issues up to the end of 2012..
Main subject areas
Internet Archaeology content has wide appeal making it an ideal resource for researchers in a number of subject areas. As well as archaeology and anthropology, this resource will be of interest to researchers in ICT, history, classics, biology, geography, environmental studies, social sciences, medicine and the performing arts.
Use in the classroom
Articles within Internet Archaeology can be used as source material in the following archaeology university modules:
Archaeological Computing,
Archaeological Fieldwork, Methodology and Practice Managing,
Interpreting and Analysing Archaeological Data,
Landscape Archaeology,
Environmental Archaeology,
Maritime Archaeology,
Interpretation and Analysis of Archaeological Materials,
Zooarchaeology,
Archaeology, Art and Representation,
Heritage Management,
Public Archaeology,
Museum studies,
Material Culture,
Settlement and Economy
And for the following units on the AQA AS/A2 Archaeology syllabus:
Survey and Excavation (Sources and Methods),
Post-Excavation, Dating and Interpretation (Techniques and Methods),
Settlement and Social Organisation,
Material Culture, Technology and Economics
Academic level
AS/A level. Undergraduate, post-graduate. Academic research.
Updates
Issues are published twice a year.
Comparable resources
There are no archaeology journals that are directly comparable to Internet Archaeology. There are other e-journals for archaeology but they almost exclusively publish text and images and don't offer the range of content (e.g. datasets, VR, video) that Internet Archaeology does. Nor does Internet Archaeology's editorial policy place any geographical/chronological restrictions on content
Cost
JISC Collections has purchased the Internet Archaeology on behalf of UK higher and further education institutions. There is no cost to institutions. However institutions must still complete a sub-licence to access the resource.
Subscription
JISC Collections has purchased a three-year licence to Internet Archaeology on behalf of UK higher and further education institutions. To access this resource; institutions need to complete a sub-licence agreement form. Please go to the subscription page for further details.
The agreement will be for three years, running from 1st January 2010 to 31st December 2012. Institutions can subscribe at any time, but will be committed until the end of the agreement.
The basis of the agreement is the JISC Model Licence.
Functionality and standards compliance
Usage statistics
The access stats are not COUNTER-compliant but the access stats that are collected are freely available at: http://intarch.ac.uk/news/iaweb.html
Authentication
The innovative nature of the material within Internet Archaeology means that there are a number of complex issues surrounding access management which have to be resolved before Athens and/or Access Management Federation access is implemented. In the meantime, IP access is provided.
Accessibility
Internet Archaeology content complies with WAI Priority 1 accessibility standards but most features also comply with Priority 2 and 3 guidelines.
Library support information