Download pdf - Digital Preservation (UWE)

A centre of expertise in digital information management

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UKOLN is supported by:

Digital Preservation

Michael Day Digital Curation Centre

UKOLN, University of Bath

[email protected]

Information Systems and Services, UWE, Bristol, 19 February 2013


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Presentation outline

• Digital preservation overview

– Some definitions

– Technical challenges

– Organisational challenges

• Approaches to solving the problem

– Preservation Strategies

– Tools for:

• Format characterisation

• Preservation Planning

– The OAIS model:

• Preservation metadata

• Repository audit frameworks (TRAC, DRAMBORA)

• Institutional assessment tools: (DAF, CARDIO)

• Research Data Management


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Definitions

• Digital preservation:

– Is mainly concerned with the sustainability of “content” for a given period of time (probably not forever)

– Largely about ensuring “continued access” to content

– “The series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary” - Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) Digital Preservation Definitions and Concepts list: http://www.dpconline.org/advice/preservationhandbook/introduction/definitions-and-concepts?q=definitions

– A combination of technical, organisational and legal challenges


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Digital preservation basics

• An ongoing (lifecycle) approach to managing digital content based on:

– The identification and adoption of appropriate preservation strategies for content

– The collection and management of appropriate metadata (explicit and implicit knowledge, contexts)

– The ongoing monitoring of technical contexts and the application of preservation planning techniques

– Continual monitoring of the organisation (audit)

– Not about keeping everything, forever


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A multi-faceted set of challenges

• Technical

– Strategies needed to deal with ongoing obsolescence and scale

• Organisational

– Access and reuse

– Authenticity and integrity

– Sustainability (costs)

– Legal

– Deciding what needs to be retained


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Technical challenges (1)

• Physical

– Bits stored on a physical medium (or in the cloud?)

– Focus 20 years ago was on new media types (e.g. optical storage technologies) as a panacea

– Bit-level preservation is still important – the first layer in a viable preservation strategy


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Obsolete media

Image courtesy of Frank Carey

Exhibition at NASA White Sands Test Facility, 2009


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Technical challenges (2)

• Hardware and software dependence

– Most digital objects are dependent on particular configurations of hardware and software

– Relatively short obsolescence cycles


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Hardware and software dependence

Exhibition at NASA White Sands Test Facility, 2009 Image courtesy of Frank Carey


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Conceptual challenges (1)

• What is an digital object?

– Some are analogues of traditional objects, e.g. meeting minutes, research papers

– Others are not, e.g. Web pages, blogs, GIS, 3D models of chemical structures, research data more generally

• Complexity

• Dynamic nature

• Interactivity

– Born digital vs. product of digitisation initiatives

– Logical layer between physical storage of bits and the conceptual objects that need preservation (includes data types, formats, etc.)


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Conceptual challenges (2)

• Need to identify and document the “significant properties” (or characteristics) of content:

– Recognises that preservation is context dependent, even user specific (OAIS concept of 'designated community')

– Helps with choosing an acceptable preservation strategy

• Compare the ‘performance model’ developed by the National Archives of Australia (2002) - “The source of a record is a fixed message that interacts with technology. This message provides the record’s unique meaning, but by itself is meaningless to researchers since it needs to be combined with technology in order to be rendered as its creator intended. The process is the technology required to render meaning from the source”

– Focus on re-use (e.g., data curation)


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Organisational challenges (1)

• Sustainability: – Ultimately the sustainability of content depends upon the long-

term sustainability of organisations

• Focus on business models

• Embedding preservation into the core task of organisations

– Organisational commitment:

• “An institutional repository needs to be a service with continuity behind it … Institutions need to recognise that they are making commitments for the long term” Clifford Lynch

• Need for policy development

– Incentives for preservation:

• Clarity on roles and responsibilities needed

• Who benefits? Who pays? “Free riding?”


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• Economic perspectives:

– Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access: http://brtf.sdsc.edu/

• Final report (Feb 2010) “Ensuring that valuable digital assets will be available for future use is not simply a matter of finding sufficient funds. It is about mobilizing resources - human, technical, and financial - across a spectrum of stakeholders diffuse over both space and time. But questions remain about what digital information we should preserve, who is responsible for preserving, and who will pay.”

– JISC-funded LIFE (Life Cycle Information for E-Literature) has developed a predictive costing tool: http://www.life.ac.uk/


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• The challenge of scale:

– The Web

– Digitised “textual” content:

• Google Books

• DPLA / Europeana

– The “data deluge” in e-Science:

• New generations of instruments, computer simulations

• Many terabytes generated per day, petabyte scale computing (and growing)

• Cory Doctorow, “Welcome to the petacentre.” Nature, 455, pp 17-21, 4 Sep 2008


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• The need for collaboration:

– Need for 'deep-infrastructure' for preservation recognised as far back as 1996 by the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information

• Digital preservation involves the "grander problem of organizing ourselves over time and as a society ... [to manoeuvre] effectively in a digital landscape" (p. 7)

– Building on existing networks

– Role for national-level co-ordination:

• Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), nestor (Germany), National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP)


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• Learn the lessons from

the past:

– Things will go wrong

– Do what you can to

enable recovery from

disaster

– Digital technologies

support replication

(create more than one

point of failure)


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Digital preservation strategies (1)

• Main approaches:

– Technology preservation (e.g., computing museums)

– Digital archaeology (a post hoc approach)

– Emulation (focusing on the environment, often used where look-and-feel is important, e.g. computer games)

– Migration (focusing on the content)

• A mature approach: A set of organised tasks designed to achieve the periodic transfer of digital information from one hardware and software configuration to another, or from one generation of computer technology to a subsequent one - CPA/RLG report (1996)


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• Preservation strategies are not in competition

– Different strategies will work together, may be value in diversification

– Migration strategies mean difficult choices need to be made about target formats

• But the strategy chosen has implications for:

– The technical infrastructure required (and metadata)

– Collection management priorities

– Rights management

• Owning the rights to re-engineer software

– Costs


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• Tools for format characterisation and validation

– DROID - Digital Record Object Identification (based on the PRONOM registry

• Very important to know what types (formats) of content exist in a particular collection (e.g., institutional repository or Web archive)

• Performs batch identification of file formats

• http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/Default.aspx

– JHOVE - JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment

• Used for format validation

• http://hul.harvard.edu/jhove/


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• Plato preservation planning tool

– Developed by EU Planets project

– A decision support tool that helps users explore the evaluation of potential preservation solutions against specific requirements and for building a plan for preserving a given set of objects

– Integrates file format identification (using DROID); some migration services; XML-based generic format characterisation using XCL (eXtensible Characterisation Languages)

– More info: http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/dp/plato/intro.html

– Integration with repositories tested by JISC KeepIt project: http://preservation.eprints.org/keepit/


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OAIS Reference Model (ISO 14721)

OAIS Functional Entities (Figure 4-1)

http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/650x0m2.pdf


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Preservation metadata

• Metadata and documentation is vitally important

– Relates to OAIS concepts like Representation Information and Preservation Description Information

– Functions:

• Enables resource discovery - supports the development of finding aids

• Records meaning (structure and semantics)

• Records context and provenance (authenticity)

– Standards that support digital preservation activities:

• PREMIS Data Dictionary (for core metadata): http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/


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Repository audit frameworks (1)

• Repository audit frameworks first developed out of the OAIS Reference Model (ISO

– OAIS Mandatory Responsibilities (only six of them):

• The main focus was on technical and organisational aspects, e.g.:

– That repositories ensure that preserved information (content) can be understood (independently understandable)

– That documented policies and procedures are being followed

• No clear concept of OAIS “compliance”


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• ISO 16363:2012 -- Audit and certification of trustworthy digital repositories

– Trusted Repositories Audit and Certification (TRAC)

– Criteria cover three main aspects:

• Organisational Infrastructure

– Governance and viability, structure and staffing, financial sustainability, contracts, etc.

• Digital Object Management

– Ingest, preservation planning, archival storage, etc.

• Infrastructure and security risk management

– Systems and infrastructure, etc.

– A basis for certification

– http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/652x0m1.pdf


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TRAC Checklist example page


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• DRAMBORA (Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment)

– Developed by the Digital Curation Centre and Digital Preservation Europe

– “Presents a methodology for self-assessment, encouraging organisations to establish a comprehensive self-awareness of their objectives, activities and assets before identifying, assessing and managing the risks implicit within their organisation“

– Identifying risks and scoring each one on likelihood and impact

– Covers: organisational context, policies, assets, risks, etc.

– Online tool: http://www.repositoryaudit.eu/


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• A means of "asking the right questions" about repositories (and the wider organisation) and documenting appropriate procedures and risks

• More than one role:

– External badge of quality (a "certified preservation repository")

• DINI-Zertifikat für Dokumenten- und Publikationsservices: http://www.dini.de/english/dini-certificate/

• ISO 16363

– Management tool for self assessment


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Core repository principles (1)

• Ten Principles - agreed 2007 by CRL (US), Digital Curation Centre (UK), Nestor (Germany) and Digital Preservation Europe

– The repository commits to continuing maintenance of digital objects for identified community/communities.

– Demonstrates organizational fitness (including financial, staffing structure, and processes) to fulfill its commitment.

– Acquires and maintains requisite contractual and legal rights and fulfills responsibilities.

– Has an effective and efficient policy framework.

– Acquires and ingests digital objects based upon stated criteria that correspond to its commitments and capabilities.


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Core repository principles (2)

• Ten principles (continued)

– Maintains/ensures the integrity, authenticity and usability of digital objects it holds over time.

– Creates and maintains requisite metadata about actions taken on digital objects during preservation as well as about the relevant production, access support, and usage process contexts before preservation.

– Fulfills requisite dissemination requirements.

– Has a strategic program for preservation planning and action.

– Has technical infrastructure adequate to continuing maintenance and security of its digital objects.

• Available: http://www.crl.edu/archiving-preservation/digital-archives/metrics-assessing-and-certifying/core-re


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Digital preservation basics (reprise)

• An ongoing (lifecycle) approach to managing digital content based on:

– The identification and adoption of appropriate preservation strategies for content

– The collection and management of appropriate metadata (explicit and implicit knowledge, contexts)

– The ongoing monitoring of technical contexts and the application of preservation planning techniques

– Continual monitoring of the organisation (audit)

– Not about keeping everything, forever


www.ukoln.ac.uk “It is always a mistake for a historian to try and predict the future. Life, unlike science, is simply too full of surprises” - Richard J. Evans, In defence of history (1997, p. 62)


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Further reading

– DPC Technology Watch reports: http://www.dpconline.org/advice/technology-watch-reports

– Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access, Final Report (NSF, 2010) http://brtf.sdsc.edu/

– Digital Preservation Coalition, Digital preservation handbook: http://www.dpconline.org/advice/preservationhandbook/

– Marieke Guy, JISC Beginner’s Guide to Digital Preservation (UKOLN, 2010) http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/jisc-beg-dig-pres/

– Digital Preservation Coalition and Digital Curation Centre, What’s New (monthly current awareness bulletin): http://www.dpconline.org/newsroom/whats-new

– JISC infoNet, Digital repositories infoKit: http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/repositories

– Paradigm Project, Workbook on Digital Private Papers: http://www.paradigm.ac.uk/workbook/index.html


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Web links:

– Digital Preservation Coalition: http://www.dpconline.org/

– Abby Smith talk (2011) at Yale: http://youtu.be/Yk9ccNP9xTk

– Plato Preservation Planning tool: http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/dp/plato/intro.html

– RSP briefing paper on preservation and storage formats: http://www.rsp.ac.uk/pubs/briefingpapers-docs/technical-preservformats.pdf

– PRESERV project: http://preservation.eprints.org/

– KeepIt project: http://preservation.eprints.org/keepit/

– WePreserve cartoons at: http://www.youtube.com/user/wepreserve


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Available: http://youtu.be/PGFOZLecjTc


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Research Data Management: activities, roles and requirements


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Introduction and overview

• What is research data management?

– Caring for,

– Facilitating access to,

– Preserving and

– Adding value to digital research data throughout its lifecycle.

• Rationale (researchers, institutions)

• Who is involved and how?

• Roles and responsibilities?


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Researcher perspectives (1)

• Managing and sharing data is simply part of good research practice:

– Adhering to disciplinary and/or institutional codes of practice and policies

– Has been practiced since the advent of modern science, but not always consistently; data intensive research makes it even more critical

– Meeting the specific requirements of funding bodies

– Reputational risks if data management is not handled properly


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Researcher perspectives (2)

• Potential benefits:

– Scholarly communication/access to data

– Re-purposing and re-use of data

– Stimulating new networks/collaborations & new research

– Knowledge transfer to industry

– Verification of research/research integrity

– Re-purposing data for new audiences

– Secure storage for data intensive research

– Availability of data underpinning journal articles

– Increased visibility/citation

Keeping Research Data Safe Factsheet http://www.beagrie.com/KRDS_Factsheet_0910.pdf


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Institutional perspectives

• Institutional drivers

– Safeguarding research integrity

– Increasing number of FOI requests for data

– Adhering to existing codes of research practice and ethics

– Developing new institution-wide strategies, policies and services for data storage and management

– Increased institutional focus on research management (e.g., in response to REF)

– Benchmarking – self-assessing infrastructure and planning for improvement

– More demands but less resources to work with


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Codes of practice for research

• UK Research Integrity Office Code of Practice for Research (2009)

– Data management planning is an essential part of research design

– Organisations should have in place procedures, resources (including physical space) and administrative support to assist researchers in the accurate and efficient collection of data and its storage in a secure and accessible form [3.12.5]

• RCUK Code of Conduct on the Governance of Good Research Conduct (2011)

– Primary data and research evidence [should be made] accessible to others for reasonable periods after the completion of the research: data should normally be preserved and accessible for 10 yrs (in some cases 20 yrs or longer)

– Responsibility for proper management and preservation of data and primary materials is shared between the researcher and the research organisation [although deposit within national collections is endorsed]


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Funding body perspectives (1)

• UK Research Councils

– Help fund some data archives, e.g.:

• Archaeology Data Service, European Bioinformatics Institute, the NERC data centres, UK Data Archive

– Support for JISC (and DCC)

– RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy

• Recognises that data are a critical output of the research process

http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/Pages/DataPolicy.aspx


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• RCUK Common Principles on Data (in a nutshell)

– Publicly funded research data should be made openly available

– Data with acknowledged long-term value should be preserved and remain accessible and usable for future research

– Sufficient metadata should be recorded to enable other researchers to find and understand the research to enable re-use; published results should always include information on how to access the supporting data

– Recognition that there may be legal, ethical and commercial constraints

– Recognition that researchers may need privileged use of data for a limited period

– All users of research data should acknowledge their sources

– Appropriate to use public funds to support MRD


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• Changing expectations of funding bodies:

– Institutions need to inform themselves about main funder policies (mandates) with respect to research data management

– There is an explicit link between research income and appropriate data management infrastructures


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http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/policy-and-legal/overview-

funders-data-policies


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EPSRC expectations (1)

• EPSRC policy (2011) expected all institutions receiving grant funding:

– To develop a roadmap aligning their policies and processes with EPSRC’s expectations by 1st May 2012

– To be fully compliant with these expectations by 1st May 2015


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EPSRC expectations (2)

• Examples:

– Appropriate metadata (including unique IDs) to be made freely available on the Internet within 12 months of data generation

– Data not generated in digital format should be stored in a manner to facilitate it being shared

– Data should be securely preserved for a minimum of 10 years after privileged access expires or the last date access was requested by a third party

– Adequate resources from existing funding streams

– EPSRC will monitor progress and compliance, and reserves the right to impose appropriate sanctions


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• Implications for researchers and institutions:

– Increasing number of research councils and funding bodies with data management and sharing requirements

– Potential loss of research income if these mandates are not met

– Need to determine the costs associated with short and longer-term management and curation and to request funds as part of grant

– Responsibility for infrastructure shifting more to HEIs and less to centralised data archives, but institutional infrastructures and services are still emerging

– Need guidance - some good external support

– But also need more local support; often fragmented (need to draw upon existing channels within institutions wherever possible)


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Who needs to be involved?

• Funding bodies

• Archives / long-term data repositories

• At institutions:

– Senior management

– Researcher(s)

– Research support officers / project staff

– Lab technicians

– Librarians / Data Centre staff

– Faculty ethics committees

– Institutional legal / IP advisors

– FOI officer / DPA officer / records manager

– Computing support

– Institutional compliance officers


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Activities, roles, requirements (1)

• Requirements gathering

– Identifying researchers’ data requirements

– Developing a shared understanding of what needs to be done (e.g., identifying where data exist, its form and scale, any existing retention requirements)

– Identifying good practice within the institution (and the opposite)

– Methods: surveys, focus groups, case studies, joint R&D projects, assessment tools (e.g. DCC Data Asset Framework)


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• Identifying motivations and benefits

– For researchers, support services, the institution

• Identifying risks

– Data loss (institution, research group, individual)

– Increased costs (lack of planning, service inefficiency, data loss)

– Legal compliance (research funder, H&S, ethics, FoI)

– Reputation (institution, unit, individual)

• Identifying costs

– Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) toolkit


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• Assessing institutional preparedness

– Identifying institutional stakeholders, existing data support services, gaps

– Benchmarking and planning for the future

– Skills audit

– DCC CARDIO tool

• Policy development

– Policies – approval by senior management is just the start; policies need to be embedded in research practice and responsive to changing requirements

• Data management planning

– DMP online, DCC How-to Develop a Data Management Plan guide


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• Implementation and service development

– Integrating where possible with existing services, e.g. IR, CRIS, VRE, HPC, cloud services, social media, etc.

– Appraisal, deciding what needs to be kept and for how long

– Storage choices – no one-size-fits-all solution, e.g. Bristol’s BluePeta petascale storage facility, Bath’s X-Drive approach, cloud approaches

– Data documentation and metadata – layered approaches: top-level discovery (core metadata, collection/experiment-level?), role of standards like DCMI, CERIF, DDI, etc.


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• Data issues:

– Appraisal: selection criteria, retention periods (who decides?)

• DCC How to appraise and select research data for curation guide

– Documentation: metadata, schema, semantics

– Formats: proprietary formats, community standards, etc.

– Provenance and authenticity

– Citation (assignment of persistent IDs?)

– Access (embargo policies?)

– Licensing

• DCC How to license research data guide


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DCC institutional assessment tools

• Data Asset Framework: http://www.data-audit.eu/

– Analysing institutional requirements and holdings

– Discover out what data exists, where it is stored, formats, metadata, etc.

• CARDIO (Collaborative Assessment of Research Data Infrastructure): http://cardio.dcc.ac.uk/

– Evaluating data management requirements, activity, and capacity

– Building consensus between data creators, information managers and service providers

– Identifying practical goals for improvement in data management provision and support;

– identifying operational inefficiencies and potential opportunities for cost saving;

– Making a case to senior managers for investment in data management support


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Further reading (research data)

– Digital Curation Centre briefing papers and How-to-Guides: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/how-guides

– Royal Society, Science as an open enterprise (June 2012): http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/science-public-enterprise/report/

– Graham Pryor, (ed.) Managing research data (London: Facet Publishing, 2012). ISBN: 978-1-85604-756-2

– Neil Beagrie, Brian Lavoie and Matthew Woollard, Keeping research data safe 2 (JISC, 2010): http://www.beagrie.com/publications.php

– Neil Beagrie, Jullia Chruszcz, and Brian Lavoie, Keeping research data safe: a cost model and guidance for UK universities (JISC, 2008): http://www.beagrie.com/publications.php

– Liz Lyon, Dealing with data; roles, rights, responsibilities and relationships (JISC, 2007): http://opus.bath.ac.uk/412/

– National Science Board, Long-lived digital data collections: enabling research and education in the 21st century (NSF, 2005): http//www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsb0540/


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Questions?


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Acknowledgments

• The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) is a world-leading centre of expertise in digital information curation with a focus on building capacity, capability and skills for research data management across the UK's higher education research community. The DCC is funded by JISC.

• More information is available from: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

• UKOLN receives support from JISC and the University of Bath, where it is based.

• More information is available from: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/


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Thank you!