Assessment Reports are used by some SCRCA Project volunteers to help prepare for field visits to sites or structures associated with the SCRCA and to record and communicate the information obtained during those field visits. (NB: The assessments conducted as part of the SCRCA Project are quick visual assessments only. They are NOT detailed structural or archaeological surveys and they must not be used or interpreted as such.)
The term Assessment Report is an abbreviation of SCRCA Project Visual Assessment Report.
Assessment Reports MAY be used to record information obtained during the assessment process. However, as a general rule, Assessment Reports are only created when locations are assessed by volunteers who are NOT able (or authorised) to edit the core Location Record. In such cases, the reports allow information to be recorded by the assessor, then conveyed to one of the SCRCA Project Administrators in a standardised format (for later review and data-upload). Both paper and online (computerised) versions of the Assessment Report are available for SCRCA Project Team Members to use. The paper versions have been designed to facilitate the efficient recording of information in the field, whereas the online version facilitates the secure and efficient storage, review and analysis of that information on a long-term basis.
The use of the paper version is recommended for all assessments, although its use may be unnecessary if a good set of images are available. If a paper report is completed, it will normally be destroyed once the information has been uploaded to the database via the online version.
As the online Assessment Reports contain information that is potentially sensitive, they can only be accessed by signed-in authorised users (i.e. SCRCA Project Team Members). Apart from the name of the assessor, no personal information is recorded during the structure assessment process.
'Surveys' vs. 'Assessments'
For the first two years of the SCRCA Project, the paper and online versions of this document were called Survey Reports. However, on the 10th of February 2014, the name of the recording forms were changed to Assessment Reports. This change was made in order to avoid any misunderstanding as to the nature and extent of the assessment process. As part of the change, the words 'survey', 'surveyed' and 'surveyor' were replaced with the words 'assessment', 'assessed' and 'assessor' wherever possible. This change reflects the fact that the assessments conducted as part of the SCRCA Project are quick visual assessments only. They are usually carried-out from a distance and some are carried-out without a site visit using only photographs and / or video-stills). These assessments are NOT detailed structural or archaeological surveys and they must not be used or interpreted as such.