Accredited GPR program
How to produce a list of accredited GPR users for archaeology?
There has long been a complaint by some in the GPR community that “anyone with a GPR system and some software” can become a GPR practitioner. While this is not always true, it is “partially true”. Many of us have had experience with people who perhaps took a 3 days class in how to turn on a GPR system, calibrate it, collect some data, and perhaps make a slice-map or two. That kind of training is is often as far as it goes.
To become a more complete GPR interpreter other work is needed to understand the often-complex three-dimensional array of radar waves that are collected in a grid. Making slice-maps only gives one a “taste” of what can be done, leaving much of the data un-examined. This can be even more the case when the ground is complex, and the archaeological materials are difficult to visualize in standard GPR images.
Recently Harry Jol and I were talking about GPR training, and he told me that he is likely to be leaving his academic position soon, and along with Ken Kvamme and my recent retirements, there will soon be nowhere in the USA where graduate students can be trained in GPR for archaeology. There are some institutions in Europe where this is still possible (Univ. Vienna, Kiel, Bradford, Zurich), but those programs are neither suitable for North American students, easily accessible, or particularly focused on GPR (leaving the language barriers with some aside).
For this reason, the GPR workshops, discussed on my site, were developed to give GPR users the advanced training to understand this method, and to apply it to a variety of ground conditions and both archaeological and geological settings. My hope is that people who complete this rigorous training will be “trained” in GPR and can go on to handle many projects that may come there way.
Also, possible clients and customers, as well as collaborators, may be searching for GPR users who meet their specific needs. The advanced GPR workshops are one way to fill this need as they will produce “graduates” with suitable GPR training to be considered “accredited” in the interpretation and analysis of GPR data.
There are no organizations on the horizon who are set up to “accredit” or “certify” GPR users in the same way that the Registry of Professional Archaeologists does. That organization has a robust application and reviewal procedure that must be followed before people can be considered to be part of their accreditation organization. Perhaps that will come in the future for GPR.
Until there is a different type of accreditation mechanism developed specially for GPR users, I have taken the initiative to produce an accreditation process, which will be available to those who have completed my Advanced GPR Workshops.
I proposed this idea to some past and future workshop participants, and here are a few of their responses:
- I agree that rigorous training and some level of certification is probably a good idea for professional archaeologists. There are a lot of CRM firms that routinely do GPR for compliance projects, especially cemetery delineation for reviewers like me. Unfortunately, the results I have seen are quite variable despite my having been fairly specific about field methods and reporting requirements.
- I was planning to put my participation in the workshop on my CV regardless, so I think some sort of accreditation, or documentation of the skills learned would be great and help folks understand and communicate their skills to each other. It can be tough to know who to recommend for GPR work because there is no set accreditation, so unless someone has a degree from a university it’s sort of up in the air. Some sort of accreditation would be great.
- I appreciate you working toward a certification of some sort for GPR professionals in archaeology. Since anyone with means can buy a GPR system, I think something like this will be valuable in setting a standard for practitioners.
- I believe this is an excellent idea, and I agree that it needs to be pursued. You are the right person for the task, and I strongly believe that your accreditation is on par with, if not better than, what may be available from other institutions.
Those are a few of the valuable reactions I have received about my accreditation proposal. I will update my list and maps on GPR-Archaeology.com of accredited GPR users, which will be based on the completion of the annual workshops. On this map, I have also included past graduate students of mine who have gone on to GPR-related careers.
Accredited GPR users in the USA
Accredited GPR users in Europe