Members of the AGS Data Management Working Group recently held a webinar marking the official launch of AGS 4.1. Sponsored by Datgel and Geotechnical Engineering, the webinar, entitled, Striding into the Future with AGS 4.1, took place on Tuesday 8^th December in front of a live audience including consultants, clients, ground investigator contractors and software vendors.

Over 520 delegates registered to attend the event which was viewed across the world in countries including Australia, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Germany and Estonia.

Event presenters included Jackie Bland (IT and Data Manager at Geotechnics and AGS Data Management Working Group Leader), Mark Bevan  (Associate Director, Data Management Team Leader at Structural Soils), Paul Chaplin (Data Manager, Ground & Water at WSP UK Ltd), Leon Warrington (Principal Hydrogeologist), Romain Arnould (Global Product Owner Digital Applications at Fugro), Peter Hepton (Principal Geotechnical Engineer and Ground Investigation Engineering Manager at SOCOTEC UK), Phil Child (Senior Consultant, Geotechnical Information Management at Bentley Systems) and Julian Lovell, (Managing Director, Equipe Group and AGS Chair).

After a successful webinar on 8th December 2020 AGS 4.1 is now available free of charge for download from www.ags.org.uk/data-format. The original AGS 4.0 document has been completely reviewed and AGS 4.1 represents a substantial update to the Data Dictionary including significant modifications to 14 existing groups and more importantly adding 24 new groups and 788 headings to introduce the following new subjects:

• Major improvements for handling geoenvironmental data and environmental containers
• Advanced laboratory testing
• Drillers descriptions
• Field geohydraulic testing
• Wireline geophysics

To support the release of AGS 4.1, we have launched a new website found at www.ags.org.uk/data-format to facilitate:

• improved discussion board interaction
• published a road map for the future of the AGS Data Format
• added a new searchable change log for the updates to AGS 4.1
• improved search and download facilities for groups and headings, abbreviations, units and data types
• easier route to proposed new headings, abbreviations, units and data types
• easy access to previous versions of the format for reference purposes

We are immensely proud of the enormous effort the group has put into both AGSi and AGS 4.1 this year and would like to thank each member of the Data Management Working Group for their dedication to the industry, not forgetting our thanks also to their companies for the work-time donated to the AGS in 2020. The group will be having a well-earned rest over Christmas and the New Year before moving on to plans for the postponed Data Conference now happening on 22nd September 2021 at the National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham.

If you missed this webinar, the recording is now live and available for free view on the AGS website which can be viewed HERE. Alternatively, it is available on the AGS’ Vimeo channel HERE.