AZSITE Consortium Meeting
Thursday, July 15, 1999
ARI, Tempe
Minutes
Participants:
Beth Grindell, ASM, Recording
Steve Savage, SHPO
Peter McCartney, ASU
Ken Rozen, ASLD
Michael Barton, ASU
Steve Erdmann, MNA
Carol Griffith, SHPO, Chair
Owen Lindauer, ADOT
Jon Shumaker, Ak-Chin Indian Community
Gabrial L. Lopez, Ak-Chin Indian Community
Ian Robertson, ASU
Kris Shepard, Archaeological Research Services
Cari Kreshak, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
Dallas D. Enos, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
Chad Smith, Fort Mohave Tribe
Brett Hill, ASU
Alison Jarrett, Western Area Power Administration
Rick Karl, ASM
1. The meeting was called to order shortly after 9:30 am. Owen Lindauer requested a
clarification of the previous meetings discussion of "data entry" as
opposed to "data insertion." "Data entry" involves the creation of a
digital file and can be done by anyone. Only ASM or the SHPO will be inserting the data
into the database, after others have created it. After this one clarification, the minutes
of the April, 1999, meeting were approved unanimously.
2. Grants status report: Carol Griffith announced that the interagency service
agreements between ADOT and Arizona State Parks for SHPO were signed and in effect, as are
agreements among ASP and ASM and ASU. Rozen and Lindauer requested copies of the
agreements.
3. Database committee report: Peter McCartney, Brett Hill, Ian Robertson, Gary Stumpf,
Noland Wiggings, Steve Erdmann, and Rick Karl, constituting the database committee, met on
June 28 at ARI. Peter sketched out a flow chart of the process of getting data into
AZSITE.
| Data creation will happen in the ACCESS stand alone database and in a series of
seven .shp files (two each, line, point and polygon files, for sites and surveys and one
polygon file for historic districts). The instructions and software for these are
available for downloading from the AZSITE website. |
| Data should be reviewed by the appropriate land manager for accuracy and then sent via
AZSITEs anonymous FTP site. |
| At ASU, the data will be processed through an update/scripting program that will assure
technical accuracy and then merged to a SQL server database. |
| The database will be replicated on servers at ASM and MNA, which allows the ability to
filter data that is not available for general viewing (tribal lands data). |
| Various MapObjects applications and standard reports are in the process of being
developed. |
McCartney noted that BLM has invested large amounts of money in various Federal
Geographic Data Committee grants to develop prototype XML document formats for data
exchange across state lines. In response to a comment from Barton on the need to
prioritize user applications such as data searches and reports, McCartney noted that there
is a two-prong approach. This includes improving existing applications and then adopting
Java applications for development of more applications.
4. Establishment of management committee: After some discussion, Barton moved that the
AZSITE consortium chair serve concurrently as the head of the management committee to deal
with legislation, funding, and agreements, contracts and interagency service agreements.
It was further decided (Griffith/Barton) that the committee be comprised of the four
AZSITE consortium agency heads, or their designees.
5. Establishment of tribal committee: A memo from David Wilcox was circulated
concerning this committee. In response to a question from Lindauer, Smith responded that
while the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona should be central to coordinating tribal
collaboration with AZSITE, it should be a consortium member who chairs the committee.
After general discussion, Barton moved that Griffith and Wilcox should work with the ITCA
to arrange a meeting and that Wilcox might want to host it.
6. User agreement (fka licensing agreement): Barton moved that the user agreement be
accepted as modified (add signatures to the institutional names page), pending any
possible modifications from the new State Parks attorney. The motion was approved
unanimously.
7. Tribal participation letter: Barton asked that any comments be sent to him within
two weeks.
8. Implications of §41-1008: Griffith recapped the possible implications of this rule,
which removes the ability of state agencies to charge fees for mandated services, unless
fees are legislatively authorized. As ASM will be charging user fees for AZSITE, Grindell
agreed to seek legal clarification of this rule from UA attorneys. Jarrett suggested that
since federal agencies will be major users of the file, there needs to be a federal users
committee, as a sub-committee of the management committee, and that federal agencies need
to figure out how to support the database.
9. Possible new legislation: The need for this was referred to the management
committee.
10. Timetable for taking AZSITE public: Barton moved that the web interface be made
functional (to include the ability to search projects files, too) and that the backlog of
data be in by Oct. 1. On Oct. 1, license ageements and tribal participation letters will
be sent out. McCartney suggested that feedback from users be sought via the AZSITE forum,
on the AZSITE web page.
11. The next meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, October 6, 1999, at ARI. Under the
quarterly schedule, year 2000 meetings will be in January, April, July, and October.
14 July 1999
MEMORANDUM
To: AZSITE Consortium
From: David R. Wilcox, facilitator for Committee of AZSITE on Tribal Involvement
Subject: Where AZSITE is today in its cooperation with Arizona's Tribal groups
A principal motive in forming the AZSITE Consortium was to create a Statewide
archaeological database that would make the Historic Program in Arizona more efficient.
Accordingly, the Consortium has worked to design an effective GIS system that will
incorporate site records,
survey data, and historic properties and districts. This system is to be accessed through
the internet using passwords. Many federal, state, and local agencies have become partners
in this effort, and the
Consortium has had numerous meetings in various parts of the State with many different
Tribal groups. Because the problems are complex that need to be solved if the Tribes are
to in one way or another participate in an efficient system of making archaeological and
historic site data
available to appropriate parties on a statewide basis, and because they are different than
those we have encountered with other constituencies, the Consortium decided to establish a
standing committee on Tribal involvement with AZSITE. I was delegated to facilitate the
formation of
this committee. This memorandum is the first step in that process. My objective here is to
set forth what the current situation is, the problems and differences of view that have
been identified, and some suggestions for how to move forward.
1. Many Tribes feel strongly that it should be they and only they who decide who has
access to archaeological or historic site information from their lands. Because of the way
the AZSITE database is designed, however, any user with a password can access all of the
database, that
pertaining to Tribal lands and that not. Such examination of a subset of the database for
which they have no business seeing would be unethical, and against Consortium rules, but
it is electronically
possible. Because the Tribes are apparently not willing to trust that the system used by
AZSITE to assign passwords to people is adequate protection of their interests, we have a
problem. How is the Consortium to arrange matters so that the Tribes control who is seeing
the database
that describes sites from their lands?
2. One solution to this problem is offered by John Welch, TIPO for the White Mountain
Apaches. He suggests creating a separate, stand-alone database, structured in the same way
as the AZSITE database, to which he would control access. In this approach, the White
Mountain data would
not be merged in the AZSITE database, but the goal of a Statewide system would not be
compromised either. Several issues need to be resolved for this approach to work. 1) Would
SHPO have a password to these stand-alone system, and would they be accessible over the
internet?
SHPO would need to have unimpeded access in order to do their job. 2) Would repositories
holding collections from the Tribes using such systems have unimpeded access so that they
could do their
curation-related tasks? 3) If AZSITE is reconfigured, how would the stand-alone systems
stay identical? 4) How many Tribes can afford to create such a stand-alone system:? What
are those that cannot to do instead?
3. Because the Consortium does not yet know formally from Tribal officials just what each
Tribe wants to do, we are preparing a letter to hopefully solicit answers to that
question. There is "legacy" data in AZSITE from Tribal lands. The Consortium
hesitates to "clean" or remove that legacy data until it has clear guidance from
the Tribes about how they want us to proceed. There is also concern about intellectual
property issues. The legacy data was collected under federal permits in
a legitimate way and it is the right of the repositories under those permits to curate
that information in the public interest. Arguably, adding it to AZSITE is part of that
mandate, particularly since the
repositories do not feel it is possible for them to maintain dual electronic databases.
The countervailing view is that a distinction should be made between the
"manual" or paper records and the AZSITE electronic database, and that the
legacy data from Tribal lands should be confined to the manual system and made accessible
only in that form to appropriate researchers. The Administration of the parties to the
Consortium have yet to make a formal ruling on these alternative positions.
4. Nevertheless, the Consortium has moved to mitigate the effects of having legacy data in
AZSITE by creating a distinction between the "master" database and a
"filtered" version of it that is available on the internet. This is, however,
only a partial solution. First, it is possible for a clever programmer to "hack"
through the filtered database and get into the master database. Second, it is possible
that a
Consortium member could give either direct access to the master database or information
from it (about sites on Tribal lands) to another person. The Administration of the parties
to the Consortium have yet to make a formal ruling on the legitimacy of such actions.
Uncertainty about the legitimacy of the Consortium's proposed licensing system, and the
proscriptions it would have about "sharing" a password makes one approach to
these problems moot.
5. Some Tribes have no internet access, nor even computers that could handle AZSITE
queries. Thus even if some Tribes should chose to work directly with AZSITE, and make
their site data available, as many Federal, State, and local agencies are, we may have to
work cooperatively to find the funding to facilitate those partnerships.
So far as I am aware, these points summarize the current situation. It appears that before
going much further with formation of the Tribal Committee, some basic decisions still need
to be made by the Consortium. Only then can it give the Committee its marching orders.
Supposing that these Administrative positions can be sharply defined, there then will be
the task of moving forward. It does not take much reflection to see that this task could
be a big one, requiring a considerable amount of correspondence, consultation,
show-and-tell, and negotiation. As the Senior Curator of Anthropology at the Museum of
Northern Arizona I simply cannot take that on myself, though I can and will happily help
to the extent possible. One approach to this problem would to have the Consortium
establish a position for an Indian intern whom we would train and who would take on the
principal burden of this effort. Given our paucity of funds, we would no doubt have to
find
grant money to establish such a position. A case could probably be made for placing such
an intern in any one of the four Consortium institutions. The basic issue to address there
is, who should have
day-to-day administrative oversight over their activities? Please give these points
careful consideration.
Respectfully submitted,
David R. Wilcox
Senior Curator of Anthropology
Museum of Northern Arizona
|