A new decision support system for knowledge management in archaeological activities”

Abstract

The use of Information Technologies (IT) has today become an added value for appropriate decision making. This has contributed to improving the companies’ strategies in the market. However, the full potential of these technologies in the relevant field of Archaeology has yet to be fully exploited. To contribute to reducing this gap, this paper presents a new and original design of a Process Maturity Framework for archaeological knowledge and data management which may be applied for high-level timely decision making, supported by an ‘IT Governance’ reference frame, in order to improve the quality and efficiency of the services provided by the Diagnostic, Prospecting, Monitoring and Excavation processes of the Preemptive Archaeology Program.This new Process Maturity Model (PMM) takes the processes which are currently established in each phase of archaeological projects as its reference to improve information analysis, reports generation and support decision-making processes, as well as to manage and control the materials and context found in the field. This is achieved by emphasizing the use of the information required for future queries and projections, ensuring its’ quality and integrity in order to generate reports more efficiently, whilst also allowing a more agile and timely decision-making process. Said information has been collected during the field and laboratory processes by analysing the proper application and management of the technology from an ‘IT Governance’ framework in companies which offer archaeological services.The different phases of the implementation of the model designed, based in ITIL, since it is the most holistic of the current benchmarks in Technology Services Management, are shown by means of a hypothetical, yet real, application of the PMM in an Archaeology Consultancy firm. Thus, a set of basic parameters is initially established in order to implement a PMM. Then, a diagnostic on the processes and IT Service Management applied to each archaeological phase is performed. Afterwards, an evaluation of the current maturity level of the processes is carried out and, finally, the continuous improvement plan is described.