UK strategies for digital preservation and curation

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UK strategies for digital preservation and
curation

• Chris Rusbridge, Digital Curation Centre

Funded by
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Contents

• Background
• Digital Preservation Coalition
• Digital Curation Centre
• Other strategic activities

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Background

• CPA/RLG report 1995
• JISC/BL workshop, Warwick 1995
• CEDARS project starts, 1998
• CAMiLEON project starts, 1999
• JISC/BL workshop, March 1999
• Digital Preservation Coalition formed, 2002
• UK Legal Deposit legislation, 2003
• Digital Curation Centre formed, 2004

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Digital Preservation Coalition

• Aim develop UK digital preservation agenda
  within international context
• Established as non-profit company July 2002
• May 2003, Digital Preservation Coordinator
  appointed
• March 2004, DPC has 27 members (BL, CURL, JISC,
  MLA, NA Scotland, OCLC, PRONI, TNA, ULCC founding
  members)

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Rationale

• Reliance on digital resources increasing rapidly
• Increasing expectations of long term availability
• Responsibility for stewardship
• Cultural and scientific value of resources

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Types of membership
Libraries
Archives Museums Records
Cross-Sectoral Membership
Publishing Media
Data services Science Technology
Government Research Policy
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What does the DPC do?

• Raise profile of digital preservation
• Run advocacy campaigns, etc
• Provide examples of good practice
• Highlight gaps and reponsibilities
• Act as catalyst for action

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DPC action examples

• Digital preservation training, advocacy and
  outreach
• PR programme to raise media profile
• Survey members to assess DP needs
• Regular fora for training and advice
• Whats New in Digital Preservation and
  Technology Watch reports

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DPC work packages

• Promoting Digital Preservation
• Acting to increase funding
• Fostering collaboration and forging strategic
  alliances
• Producing, providing, and disseminating
  information
• Promoting and developing services, technology,
  standards and training
• Continuing to develop the Coalitions activities

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Digital curation continuum
For later use? In use now (and the future)?
Static
Dynamic
Digital preservation
Digital curation
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Digital Curation Centre

• History
• JISC Strategy (Beagrie et al)
• Lord and MacDonald report
• JISC and e-Science funding
• Call for bids 2003
• DCC Project for 3 years
• Service began March 2004
• Research begun September 2004

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Digital Curation Rationale

• Definition?
• maintaining and adding value to a trusted body
  of digital information for current and future
  use

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Assuring permanent access to the records of
science the humanities?

• Long term access to primary data
• Increasing data volumes from eScience and
  Grid-enabled / cyberinfrastructure applications
• Changing research paradigm data-driven science,
  big science
• Observational data, simulations, large-scale
  experimentation
• Multi-media resources, statistical data,
  surveys, geo-spatial data

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Reports

• Tony Hey et al The Data Deluge
• Atkins et al Blue-Ribbon report on
  Cyberinfrastructure
• NSB Draft report on Long-lived Digital Data
  Collections
• Recent report on Cyberinfrastructure in Social,
  Behavioural and Economic sciences

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Census Data on the Web
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Internet Archaeology publication with data
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Lord/Macdonald 1data producers
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Lord/Macdonald 2
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Lord/Macdonald 3data producers re-visited
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Conclusions?

• Need for continuing care of data
• More than digital preservation
• Hence Digital Curation Centre
• Providing advice and support

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Structure to Engage Collaborate
curation organisations eg DPC
communities of practice users
community support outreach
service definition delivery
Collaborative Associates Network of
Data Organisations
management admin support
research collaborators
research
development co-ordination
testbeds tools
Industry
standards bodies
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Matrix structure
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Activities desiredfrom User Needs Analysis
RD issues Annotation services, Ontology
development, Automating metadata creation, Tools
and toolkits, Data Format Description Language,
Identifiers, Registries, Economic and
cost-benefits studies Advisory services
Ask-a-Curator,FAQs, reports, briefings,
awareness-raising materials, best practice
guidance, Storage media, Like Erpanet, advise
Government, Research Councils, funding
bodies Professional development Short courses,
conferences, seminars, workshops, secondments to
DCC and to working repository services Outreach
Leadership for the future, case studies, sharing
solutions, collaboration with other partners,
international peers, industry links
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Curated databases some issues

• Integrating and publishing data so that someone
  else can use it.
• Annotating existing data and moving annotations
  to other databases
• Provenance where did this data come from?
• Archiving how do you preserve something that is
  constantly changing?

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Research approaches

• Publishing integrating scientific databases
• Archiving past states of volatile databases
• Database provenance and annotation
• Organisational dynamics of trusted repositories
• Automating metadata extraction
• Cost-benefit analysis of data curation
• Rights and responsibilities

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Development approach

• OAIS (Open Archival Information System) linkage
  focus on representation information
• link to global work on format registries?
• Concentrate on scientific data formats?
• Repository
• Representation Information
• Standards and Tools
• Aim for OAIS compliance
• Persistent identifiers
• Certification RLG task force
• Open development wiki and email list

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OAIS Reference Model Functional Model
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Representation Net

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Development Roadmap

• Registry complete prototype, link to PRONOM,
  GDFR etc, handover to service
• Representation information describe CCLRC
  (science) data using EAST, etc
• Certification work continues
• Additional tools metadata extraction
• Testbeds, interactions with others

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Service definition delivery

• Advisory services
• Responses to queriesfrom legal to technical
  guidance HELPDESK_at_dcc.ac.uk
• Site visits (National Institute of Environmental
  eScience)
• Information Services
• Briefing Documents - Freedom of Information by
  Mags McGinley
• DIGITAL CURATION MANUAL
• 20 chapters written by community experts e.g.
  Metadata written by Michael Day, UKOLN
• Peer-reviewed
• Checklist for Compliance with best practices and
  standards
• Technology Watch

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Services workshops

• 2005 Programme
• Preservation of medical databases 24-25 May at
  the Gulbenkian Institute, Lisbon in collaboration
  with ERPANET the Wellcome Trust
• Persistent identifiers liaising with NISO, 30
  June at University of Glasgow
• Institutional repositories 6 July at the
  University of Cambridge, UK in collaboration with
  DSpace
• Cost models in collaboration with Digital
  Preservation Coalition July at British Library

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User requirements analysis

• Commissioned study
• Leona Carpenter
• Reporting now
• Desk-based research
• Focus groups
• Interviews
• Results will inform research, development service
  definition / delivery and outreach
• Recommendations and priority tasks

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www.dcc.ac.uk
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• www.ijdc.net
• Launch planned June/July
• Peer-reviewed contributions
• Peters Buneman and Burnhill, Editor (issue 1)
• Production editor Philip Hunter

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Sample issue Full papers Invited articles News
views Papers for submission are very welcome!
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1st DCC International Conference

• Location - Bath UK
• 29-30 September 2005
• Keynote speakers
• Cliff Lynch CNI
• Graham Cameron European Bio-informatics
  Institute
• DCC Research update
• Social highlights

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Associates Network
Goals Develop understanding, share best practice,
advance research, promote recognition, develop
consensus Membership International groups,
national bodies, industry partners, funders,
research groups, HEIs, FEIs, individuals Benefit
s Early access to RD outputs, advisory services,
training, input to definition and design,
community participation Discussion Forum
www.dcc.ac.uk Please join us!
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Other strategic activities

• Legal deposit
• BL Digital Object Management system
• The National Archive
• European activities DELOS, ERPAnet etc
• JISC 4/04 Digital Preservation Programme

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JISC preservation programme

• Assessment of UK Data Archive and The National
  Archives compliance with OAIS/METS
• DAAT Digital Asset Assessment Tool
• Digital Preservation Training Programme
• eSPIDA An effective Strategic model for the
  Preservation and disposal of Institutional
  Digital Assets
• LIFE (Lifecycle Information for E-literature)
• Managing Digital Assets in Tertiary Education
  (Mandate)

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JISC preservation programme 2

• Managing Risk a Model Business Preservation
  Strategy for Corporate Digital Assets
• METS Awareness Training
• Personal Archives Accessible in Digital Media
  (paradigm)
• PRESERV (PReservation Eprint SERVices)
• SHERPA Digital Preservation Creating a
  Persistent Preservation Environment for
  Institutional Repositories

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Acknowledgements

• Slides from Maggie Jones, Liz Lyon, Peters
  Burnhill Buneman, David Giaretta and others
  used with thanks.

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Trusted Repositories of Knowledge

• The Maori entrusted their knowledge to people,
  trained to be the repositories,who could
• receive information with the utmost accuracy
• store information with integrity beyond doubt
• retrieve the information without amendment
• apply appropriate judgement in the use of the
  information
• pass on the information appropriately.
• Whatarangi Winiata, (2002), Repositories of Röpü
  Tuku Iho A Contribution to the Survival of
  Mäori as a People, Wellington Library
  Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa
  Annual Conference, 17-20 November 2002
• Special thanks to Professors Derek Law Seamus
  Ross

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Aims Objectives for the DCC

• quality improvement in data curation
  digital preservation
• initial focus data as evidence for scholarly
  conclusions
• wider remit scholarly communication eLearning
• excellence in research excellence in service
• working with repositories, rather than being one
• connecting communities via Associates Network
• universities research institutes
• scientific data tradition document tradition
• international cross-sectoral