Deploying an offline, multi-user, mobile system for digital recording in the Perachora Peninsula, Greece

This article discusses the deployment of mobile data capture software developed by the Field Acquired Information Management Systems project (FAIMS Mobile) to document systematic pedestrian surface survey and legacy feature verification at the Perachora Peninsula Archaeology Project (PPAP), Greece, in 2020. FAIMS Mobile is an open-source platform that generates customized Android applications for data capture during field research. We reused and adapted two existing customizations from the FAIMS library for comprehensive digital recording of two workflows, integrating a collection of structured data, geospatial data, photos, and text. FAIMS Mobile required only modest hardware but supported offline setup, synchronization, and data export, allowing PPAP to deploy it despite unreliable internet access. The system proved successful; it was tailored to our aims and methods, captured consistent and well-described data rapidly, and minimized post-processing. All collected data was available daily for planning, and a comprehensive dataset adhering to Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data standards was ready for analysis with only a few hours of processing after fieldwork.