Foundations of Modern Language Resource Archives

A number of serious reasons will convince an increasing amount of researchers to store their relevant material in centers which we will call "language resource archives". They combine the duty of taking care of long-term preservation as well as the task to give access to their material to different user groups. Access here is meant in the sense that an active interaction with the data will be made possible to support the integration of new data, new versions or commentaries of all sort. Modern Language Resource Archives will have to adhere to a number of basic principles to fulfill all requirements and they will have to be involved in federations to create joint language resource domains making it even more simple for the researchers to access the data. This paper makes an attempt to formulate the essential pillars language resource archives have to adhere to

La certificazione dei depositi digitali: il Data Seal of Approval

In recent years, it has become increasingly common to entrust records to digital repositories; this assumes an implicit confidence in the repositories reliability, and therefore is urgent to identify the criteria on which to evaluate them. The Data Seal of Approval is a set of sixteen criteria that can be used to ensure that archived data can still be found, understood and used in the future. It is a basic level of certification but it is very useful to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the deposit; in any case, it constitutes a solid basis for further certification of compliance to ISO 16363 or DIN 31644. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of Data Seal of Approval in the wider context of digital repositories' certification.Negli ultimi anni sta diventando sempre più incalzante la necessità di affidare i propri archivi digitali a fornitori di servizi di archiviazione e conservazione a lungo termine; da qui nasce l'esigenza di individuare criteri sulla base dei quali valutare i depositi digitali. In questo contesto si colloca il Data Seal of Approval che è una certificazione di livello base ma molto utile per mettere in evidenza i punti di forza e di debolezza di un deposito; in ogni caso, costituisce un buon punto di partenza per l'ulteriore certificazione di conformità alle norme ISO 16363 o DIN 31644. Lo scopo di questo articolo è quello di fornire una panoramica del Data Seal of Approval contestualizzandolo nel quadro delle iniziative internazionali sulla certificazione dei depositi digital

Ten Years Back, Five Years Forward: The Data Seal of Approval

If we want to share data, the long-term storage of those data in a trustworthy digital archive is an essential condition. Trust is the basis of storing and sharing data. That trust must be present in the various stakeholders involved. Certification of digital archives can make an important contribution to the confidence of these stakeholders in the digital archives.Ten years ago DANS was assigned the task of developing a Seal of Approval for digital data to ensure that archived data can still be found, understood and used in the future. In 2009 this Data Seal of Approval (DSA) was transferred to an international body, the DSA Board, which has managed and further developed the guidelines and the peer review process ever since.The objectives of the DSA are to safeguard data, ensure high quality and guide reliable management of data for the future without requiring implementation of new standards, regulations or heavy investments. The DSA contains 16 guidelines for applying and verifying quality aspects concerning the creation, storage, use and reuse of digital data.Based on feedback from data archives that applied for a DSA and different case studies we have gained some insight into the benefits of DSA. Still, the impact of having the Seal is not easy to measure. Seal holders usually refer to qualitative benefits in the form of increased awareness of the value of their repositories to their communities, funders and publishers.Ten years down the line we can safely state that the Data Seal of Approval has proven its added value. If we try to look five years into the future, what can we expect? There are different developments: a growing interest in DSA among European research infrastructures, the collaboration between DSA and the ISCU World Data System under the umbrella of the RDA (Research Data Alliance) and the European Commission is showing a growing interest in certification services.The success of DSA also provides the challenge to further professionalize the DSA organization in the coming years, this to enable its community to continue to grow. All in all there are promising developments for a bright future for the Data Seal of Approval

La certificazione dei depositi digitali: il Data Seal of Approval

In recent years, it has become increasingly common to entrust records to digital repositories; this assumes an implicit confidence in the repositories reliability, and therefore is urgent to identify the criteria on which to evaluate them. The Data Seal of Approval is a set of sixteen criteria that can be used to ensure that archived data can still be found, understood and used in the future. It is a basic level of certification but it is very useful to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the deposit; in any case, it constitutes a solid basis for further certification of compliance to ISO 16363 or DIN 31644. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of Data Seal of Approval in the wider context of digital repositories' certification.Negli ultimi anni sta diventando sempre più incalzante la necessità di affidare i propri archivi digitali a fornitori di servizi di archiviazione e conservazione a lungo termine; da qui nasce l'esigenza di individuare criteri sulla base dei quali valutare i depositi digitali. In questo contesto si colloca il Data Seal of Approval che è una certificazione di livello base ma molto utile per mettere in evidenza i punti di forza e di debolezza di un deposito; in ogni caso, costituisce un buon punto di partenza per l'ulteriore certificazione di conformità alle norme ISO 16363 o DIN 31644. Lo scopo di questo articolo è quello di fornire una panoramica del Data Seal of Approval contestualizzandolo nel quadro delle iniziative internazionali sulla certificazione dei depositi digital

An ontology for risk management of digital collections

Maintaining accessibility to and understanding of digital information over time is a complex challenge that often requires contributions and interventions from a variety of individuals and organizations. The processes of preservation planning and evaluation are fundamentally implicit and share similar complexity. Both demand comprehensive knowledge and understanding of every aspect of to-be-preserved content and the contexts within which preservation is undertaken. Consequently, means are required for the identification, documentation and association of those properties of data, representation and management mechanisms that in combination lend value, facilitate interaction and influence the preservation process. These properties may be almost limitless in terms of diversity, but are integral to the establishment of classes of risk exposure, and the planning and deployment of appropriate preservation strategies. We explore several research objectives within the course of this thesis. Our main objective is the conception of an ontology for risk management of digital collections. Incorporated within this are our aims to survey the contexts within which preservation has been undertaken successfully, the development of an appropriate methodology for risk management, the evaluation of existing preservation evaluation approaches and metrics, the structuring of best practice knowledge and lastly the demonstration of a range of tools that utilise our findings. We describe a mixed methodology that uses interview and survey, extensive content analysis, practical case study and iterative software and ontology development. We build on a robust foundation, the development of the Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment. We summarise the extent of the challenge facing the digital preservation community (and by extension users and creators of digital materials from many disciplines and operational contexts) and present the case for a comprehensive and extensible knowledge base of best practice. These challenges are manifested in the scale of data growth, the increasing complexity and the increasing onus on communities with no formal training to offer assurances of data management and sustainability. These collectively imply a challenge that demands an intuitive and adaptable means of evaluating digital preservation efforts. The need for individuals and organisations to validate the legitimacy of their own efforts is particularly prioritised. We introduce our approach, based on risk management. Risk is an expression of the likelihood of a negative outcome, and an expression of the impact of such an occurrence. We describe how risk management may be considered synonymous with preservation activity, a persistent effort to negate the dangers posed to information availability, usability and sustainability. Risk can be characterised according to associated goals, activities, responsibilities and policies in terms of both their manifestation and mitigation. They have the capacity to be deconstructed into their atomic units and responsibility for their resolution delegated appropriately. We continue to describe how the manifestation of risks typically spans an entire organisational environment, and as the focus of our analysis risk safeguards against omissions that may occur when pursuing functional, departmental or role-based assessment. We discuss the importance of relating risk-factors, through the risks themselves or associated system elements. To do so will yield the preservation best-practice knowledge base that is conspicuously lacking within the international digital preservation community. We present as research outcomes an encapsulation of preservation practice (and explicitly defined best practice) as a series of case studies, in turn distilled into atomic, related information elements. We conduct our analyses in the formal evaluation of memory institutions in the UK, US and continental Europe. Furthermore we showcase a series of applications that use the fruits of this research as their intellectual foundation. Finally we document our results in a range of technical reports and conference and journal articles. We present evidence of preservation approaches and infrastructures from a series of case studies conducted in a range of international preservation environments. We then aggregate this into a linked data structure entitled PORRO, an ontology relating preservation repository, object and risk characteristics, intended to support preservation decision making and evaluation. The methodology leading to this ontology is outlined, and lessons are exposed by revisiting legacy studies and exposing the resource and associated applications to evaluation by the digital preservation community