A model for digital preservation repository risk relationships

The paper introduces the Preserved Object and Repository Risk Ontology (PORRO), a model that relates preservation functionality with associated risks and opportunities for their mitigation. Building on work undertaken in a range of EU and UK funded research projects (including the Digital Curation Centre , DigitalPreservationEurope and DELOS ), this ontology illustrates relationships between fundamental digital library goals and their parameters; associated rights and responsibilities; practical activities and resources involved in their accomplishment; and risks facing digital libraries and their collections. Its purpose is to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of risk causality and to illustrate opportunities for mitigation and avoidance. The ontology reflects evidence accumulated from a series of institutional audits and evaluations, including a specific subset of digital libraries in the DELOS project which led to the definition of a digital library preservation risk profile. Its applicability is intended to be widespread, and its coverage expected to evolve to reflect developments within the community. Attendees will gain an understanding of the model and learn how they can utilize this online resource to inform their own risk management activities

Trust Strategies for the Semantic Web

Everyone agrees on the importance of enabling trust on the SemanticWebto ensure more efficient agent interaction. Current research on trust seems to focus on developing computational models, semantic representations, inference techniques, etc. However, little attention has been given to the plausible trust strategies or tactics that an agent can follow when interacting with other agents on the Semantic Web. In this paper we identify five most common strategies of trust and discuss their envisaged costs and benefits. The aim is to provide some guidelines to help system developers appreciate the risks and gains involved with each trust strategy

The Paternalistic Relationship: Authenticity and credibility as a source of healthy relationships

This article explores the how the Paternalistic Leadership model can be viewed as part of a relationship-based paradigm of leadership, and can incorporate concepts such as credibility and authenticity. The review highlights the need to understand paternalistic leadership as an approach to establishing productive relationships within a cultural context, with implications for researchers and practitioners in both collectivist and individualistic cultures

Beyond deficit-based models of learners' cognition: Interpreting engineering students' difficulties with sense-making in terms of fine-grained epistemological and conceptual dynamics

Researchers have argued against deficit-based explanations of students' troubles with mathematical sense-making, pointing instead to factors such as epistemology: students' beliefs about knowledge and learning can hinder them from activating and integrating productive knowledge they have. In this case study of an engineering major solving problems (about content from his introductory physics course) during a clinical interview, we show that "Jim" has all the mathematical and conceptual knowledge he would need to solve a hydrostatic pressure problem that we posed to him. But he reaches and sticks with an incorrect answer that violates common sense. We argue that his lack of mathematical sense-making-specifically, translating and reconciling between mathematical and everyday/common-sense reasoning-stems in part from his epistemological views, i.e., his views about the nature of knowledge and learning. He regards mathematical equations as much more trustworthy than everyday reasoning, and he does not view mathematical equations as expressing meaning that tractably connects to common sense. For these reasons, he does not view reconciling between common sense and mathematical formalism as either necessary or plausible to accomplish. We, however, avoid a potential "deficit trap"-substituting an epistemological deficit for a concepts/skills deficit-by incorporating multiple, context-dependent epistemological stances into Jim's cognitive dynamics. We argue that Jim's epistemological stance contains productive seeds that instructors could build upon to support Jim's mathematical sense-making: He does see common-sense as connected to formalism (though not always tractably so) and in some circumstances this connection is both salient and valued.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of Engineering Educatio

Software system safety

Software itself is not hazardous, but since software and hardware share common interfaces there is an opportunity for software to create hazards. Further, these software systems are complex, and proven methods for the design, analysis, and measurement of software safety are not yet available. Some past software failures, future NASA software trends, software engineering methods, and tools and techniques for various software safety analyses are reviewed. Recommendations to NASA are made based on this review

Bringing self assessment home: repository profiling and key lines of enquiry within DRAMBORA

Digital repositories are a manifestation of complex organizational, financial, legal, technological, procedural, and political interrelationships. Accompanying each of these are innate uncertainties, exacerbated by the relative immaturity of understanding prevalent within the digital preservation domain. Recent efforts have sought to identify core characteristics that must be demonstrable by successful digital repositories, expressed in the form of check-list documents, intended to support the processes of repository accreditation and certification. In isolation though, the available guidelines lack practical applicability; confusion over evidential requirements and difficulties associated with the diversity that exists among repositories (in terms of mandate, available resources, supported content and legal context) are particularly problematic. A gap exists between the available criteria and the ways and extent to which conformity can be demonstrated. The Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA) is a methodology for undertaking repository self assessment, developed jointly by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE). DRAMBORA requires repositories to expose their organization, policies and infrastructures to rigorous scrutiny through a series of highly structured exercises, enabling them to build a comprehensive registry of their most pertinent risks, arranged into a structure that facilitates effective management. It draws on experiences accumulated throughout 18 evaluative pilot assessments undertaken in an internationally diverse selection of repositories, digital libraries and data centres (including institutions and services such as the UK National Digital Archive of Datasets, the National Archives of Scotland, Gallica at the National Library of France and the CERN Document Server). Other organizations, such as the British Library, have been using sections of DRAMBORA within their own risk assessment procedures. Despite the attractive benefits of a bottom up approach, there are implicit challenges posed by neglecting a more objective perspective. Following a sustained period of pilot audits undertaken by DPE, DCC and the DELOS Digital Preservation Cluster aimed at evaluating DRAMBORA, it was stated that had respective project members not been present to facilitate each assessment, and contribute their objective, external perspectives, the results may have been less useful. Consequently, DRAMBORA has developed in a number of ways, to enable knowledge transfer from the responses of comparable repositories, and incorporate more opportunities for structured question sets, or key lines of enquiry, that provoke more comprehensive awareness of the applicability of particular threats and opportunities

Validation of Ultrahigh Dependability for Software-Based Systems

Modern society depends on computers for a number of critical tasks in which failure can have very high costs. As a consequence, high levels of dependability (reliability, safety, etc.) are required from such computers, including their software. Whenever a quantitative approach to risk is adopted, these requirements must be stated in quantitative terms, and a rigorous demonstration of their being attained is necessary. For software used in the most critical roles, such demonstrations are not usually supplied. The fact is that the dependability requirements often lie near the limit of the current state of the art, or beyond, in terms not only of the ability to satisfy them, but also, and more often, of the ability to demonstrate that they are satisfied in the individual operational products (validation). We discuss reasons why such demonstrations cannot usually be provided with the means available: reliability growth models, testing with stable reliability, structural dependability modelling, as well as more informal arguments based on good engineering practice. We state some rigorous arguments about the limits of what can be validated with each of such means. Combining evidence from these different sources would seem to raise the levels that can be validated; yet this improvement is not such as to solve the problem. It appears that engineering practice must take into account the fact that no solution exists, at present, for the validation of ultra-high dependability in systems relying on complex software

Constructs of Successful and Sustainable SME Leadership in East Africa

Despite the markedly increased foreign investment, East African economies remain characterized by low levels of investment and capital formation with high level of attrition amongst indigenous small and medium enterprises. While there is a high failure rate amongst these SMEs, some are beginning to turn the corner and are exhibiting signs of robustness, innovativeness and sustainability. Relying on narrative accounts of successful SMEs leaders in Kenya and Uganda obtained through interviews and focus group discussions, this study sought to construct an account of leadership practices and ascriptions of success for SMEs that had succeeded. The study identified eight leadership constructs characteristic of successful SME leaders in Kenya and Uganda grouped into visioning, building commitment, social capital, personal values, anticipation and resilience, resourcefulness, responsiveness, and entrepreneurial orientation. While these results, on the face value, are apparently not unique, it was in the nuances of the leadership practice that difference was made. In conclusion, the study highlights implications for these findings in relation to policy and leadership practice among SMEs

Trustworthiness of statistical inference

We examine the role of trustworthiness and trust in statistical inference, arguing that it is the extent of trustworthiness in inferential statistical tools which enables trust in the conclusions. Certain tools, such as the p‐value and significance test, have recently come under renewed criticism, with some arguing that they damage trust in statistics. We argue the contrary, beginning from the position that the central role of these methods is to form the basis for trusted conclusions in the face of uncertainty in the data, and noting that it is the misuse and misunderstanding of these tools which damages trustworthiness and hence trust. We go on to argue that recent calls to ban these tools would tackle the symptom, not the cause, and themselves risk damaging the capability of science to advance, as well as risking feeding into public suspicion of the discipline of statistics. The consequence could be aggravated mistrust of our discipline and of science more generally. In short, the very proposals could work in quite the contrary direction from that intended. We make some alternative proposals for tackling the misuse and misunderstanding of these methods, and for how trust in our discipline might be promoted