AR01042_WODAN_Final_Report_10.pdf - The Heritage Council

The essential aim of the project was to design a database that would be a trusted digital repository
for wood and charcoal data (both biological and archaeological).
1. The main aim of the project is to establish an online database to store published and
unpublished data (when accessible). This will be updated by the user community through
input of their own results, thus in effect creating an online archive.
2. The online database is constructed with an associated web application which provides
tools for the systematic inputting of data, and a series of tools to query and browse both
your own and the user community data.
3. A further aim is to use the WODAN project to standardise methodologies, storage of data
and presentation of results within the IWAA. On-going workshops, meetings and
demonstrations of the database are facilitating this. Standardisation will eventually lead to
better comparison of data and easier data entry into WODAN.
4. Only one version of the WODAN database (excluding backup data) will be utilised to
supply centralised access via the web to all users, eliminating the problems of data
versioning and data replication.
5. The online nature of the WODAN database is a new departure for environmental
databases. This allows people to input their results anytime, anywhere.
6. The MyWODAN facility provides a summary of each specialists own sites and their own
access policy.
7. The queries (particularly the query builder) will allow specialists to deal effectively with
their thousands of identifications. This will be particularly valuable when answering
research questions and enhancing publications for large infrastructural developments.
8. The WODAN database will provide the ability for the first time for specialists to query
each others results thereby uniting all the work and identifications that were completed in
Ireland during the boom years.
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