The first publicly available version of the Arches source code was released in January 2013. It is available for interested information technology specialists to evaluate and provide feedback. In September 2013 a more advanced version of the system will be released that will be ready for heritage organizations to customize and deploy. More information will be offered at that time. The software development roadmap, as of January 2013, is below:
v. 0.9.0 (January 2013)
Source code and basic technical documentation (for system installation / software load) publicly available
v. 0.9.0 features:
- CIDOC CRM ontology implemented (see Standards and Interoperability)
- CIDOC Core Data Standard for archaeological and architectural heritage implemented as set of default data fields
- Map-based data display (using Google Maps, Bing, TileMill, OpenStreetMap, or Esri basemap services)
- Ability to register GIS map services and visualize them within Arches (layer library)
- Integrated search engine (Lucene/ElasticSearch) and automated indexing scripts
- Inclusion of test data (courtesy of the Flanders Heritage Agency)
- Simple search function (for appellation-based searches, with a “placeholder” for advanced search)
- Simple reporting function
- Installation scripts and documentation for Windows/Linux
v. 1.0.0 (September 2013)
More complete technical documentation and user documentation available
v. 1.0.0 features:
- Data management forms (including creating, editing, retiring, and retrieving data)
- Complete mappings between the CIDOC Core Data Standard and the CIDOC CRM implemented
- Concept schema to manage controlled vocabularies. This will include thesauri to manage CIDOC CRM E55 Type class, as well as Gazetteer (or similar approach) to manage geospatial domain data, such as administrative boundaries and addresses
- User roles (building in role-based access to the application)
- Dedicated Simple and Advanced search user interfaces
- Styled reports
- Basic data export (KML, CSV)
- Expanded test data (Courtesy of English Heritage)
- Simple data import (Excel, CSV, minimum entity types)
- System configuration using Django admin interface (system extent, data layers for layer library, user roles)
- AMI (Amazon Machine Image)
v. 1.1.0
- CTP (Context, Theme, Property) extension
- Enhanced system configuration (define entity types)
- Advanced Data Import (XML, Shapefile)
- Advanced Data Export (XML, RDF, Shapefile)
- Field data collection (tablet)
- API (Application Programming Interface)
v. 2.0.0
- Collaboration (saving/sharing maps)
- Metadata (Dublin Core)
- Projects (by jurisdiction/type)
Route 66, United States