OpenArchaeoSurvey, or ‘being educated by the digital fieldwork assistant’

The practice of using mobile survey applications (or a digital fieldwork assistant, dFA) has a tradition of more than a decade in the context of archaeological field survey. In their 2002 CAA paper "Educating the Digital Fieldwork Assistant", Martijn van Leusen and Nick Ryan wrote extensively about the advantages and practicalities of using a digital field notebook combined with a GPS receiver for field surveys. The OpenArchaeoSurvey project is aimed at improving such applications, building on recent developments in mobile technology. The ‘open’ in our project stands for ‘open source software’, but also for allowing real-time data exchange and communication using the fieldwork application. In addition to the practical advantages, this creates the possibility for all participants to reflect on the collected data. Therefore, the development of the OpenArchaeoSurvey goes hand in hand with a tentative exploration of improved possibilities for Mobile Learning, or, how students can be ‘educated by the fieldwork assistant’.