What is the Register's Field School Certification?

Certifying your field school with the Register of Professional Archaeologists means that your field school has met a set of professional standards covering the following five areas:

• Purpose. The field school must have both an explicit research design and an explicit curriculum design that integrates research with student education.
  
  
• Personnel. The Director or Principal Investigator of the field school must be certified as an RPA.
  
  
• Operational Procedure. The field school must include formal instruction on field techniques including excavation, survey, and laboratory work.
  
  
• Field Procedure. The field school must include proper data recovery and recording techniques.
  
  
• Sponsor. The sponsoring institution must provide appropriate resources for laboratory work, curation, and publication/distribution of the research results.

program qualifications & requirements

1. The Director or Principal Investigator (PI) of the field program must be RPA-certified by the beginning of the field school program. The Director or PI should have primary responsibility for direct supervision of field school participants in the field and in the laboratory.
   
   
2. The Register of Professional Archaeologists realizes that field school research programs include a wide variety of research objectives, field methods, and theoretical perspectives. For that reason, we do not list a set of procedures that all field schools must follow. We do, however, list a number of procedures required of certified field schools if they employ particular field methods.
   
   
3. All field schools are expected to produce a report summarizing their findings within one (1) calendar year of the end of the field school. A report must be produced for each year a field school is conducted. The report should be accessible to the research community.
   
   
4. Field school duration has a direct influence on the education and training process. Field schools should provide at least four weeks of field experience including both field and laboratory training during the course of the program.
   
   
5. To be considered for RPA certification, field school directors must submit an Online Application, completing all required fields. There is a processing fee of $35.
   
   
6. Field schools will be certified for two years. Re-certification after the end of the second certification year will require completion of a new application form.