Guides to Good Practice

The Guides to Good Practice (G2GP) provide comprehensive guidance for creating, managing, and preserving digital heritage data across the entire project lifecycle. Developed by the Archaeology Data Service and partners since 1996, these guides address the needs of heritage organisations, project creators, and data management professionals.

Update

In 2026, the Guides underwent a significant update to make these digital resources more accessible and reusable. Each guide now:

• Features a persistent Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and a full citation format to ensure proper attribution. 
• Has also been migrated to a Jupyter Notebook format, which provides benefits to usability and accessibility.
• Is shared on GitHub, with both content and source code available, enabling others to suggest improvement, adapt and build upon these guides.

This update of the Guides has been made possible by HSDS staff, with financial support from RICHeS and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Guides for Heritage Science

Many of the existing guides are useful for heritage science specialists including general information relating to data management and digital archiving, as well as those that relate to specific types of data collection. A list of the guides that may be relevant to heritage science are curated below.

Please visit the Guides to Good Practice webpages hosted by the ADS to learn more and access the full set of resources.

General information guides

• Digital Archiving and the Project Lifecycle: An Introduction to these Guides
• Basic ‘Components’: Common Digital Objects
  • Documents and Digital Texts
  • Databases and Spreadsheets
  • Raster images
  • Vector images
  • Digital Video
  • Digital Audio

Data Collection and Fieldwork

• Guide to Good Practice: Geophysical Data in Archaeology
• Marine Survey Data: A Guide to Good Practice
• Dendrochronological Data in Archaeology: A Guide to Good Practice

Forthcoming Heritage Science Guides

Over the next three years, the HSDS will develop, in conjunction with heritage science specialists, a series of new Guides to cover all aspects of Heritage Science and Conservation Research. 

If you are interested in contributing to a new guide relating to heritage science and conservation please contact the HSDS helpdesk at [email protected].