Historic Preservation Series No. 3: OHA Report Checklist

The Alaska Office of History and Archaeology (OHA) proposes the OHA Report Checklist as a guideline for the creation of cultural resources technical reports to be submitted to our office.

The goal of the OHA Report Checklist is to remind authors of the types of information that should generally be in every cultural resources technical report. Using the checklist will improve comprehensiveness and data consistency in cultural resource reports. This will help streamline the OHA document review process. Reports written following the checklist should provide more detailed information for inclusion in the Alaska Heritage Resources Survey (AHRS) database, leading to more complete literature review results. These improved literature review results should lead to more informed project management decisions and more comprehensive Determination of Eligibility discussions. Ultimately, the checklist should save time through more completed and consistent reporting of cultural resources projects from throughout Alaska.

The OHA recognizes that not every item in the checklist is applicable to every project; it was not designed to impose a format for all reports, nor to exclude information that may be unique to a specific project. In some cases, stating why a checklist item is not present will help answer anticipated questions from readers and reviewers. Although a completed checklist is not required when submitting a report to the OHA, it may aid in reviewing the report.

The OHA Report Checklist will likely undergo revisions over time as it is used and reviewed by authors, agencies, and the OHA staff. While comments on the checklist will always be welcome, we are currently actively seeking comments through December 31, 2016. We plan to use your comments to update the checklist annually. Please feel free to contact us with your comments or questions at oha.ibs@alaska.gov