Digital Preservation Services : State of the Art Analysis

Research report funded by the DC-NET project.An overview of the state of the art in service provision for digital preservation and curation. Its focus is on the areas where bridging the gaps is needed between e-Infrastructures and efficient and forward-looking digital preservation services. Based on a desktop study and a rapid analysis of some 190 currently available tools and services for digital preservation, the deliverable provides a high-level view on the range of instruments currently on offer to support various functions within a preservation system.European Commission, FP7peer-reviewe

The Data Audit Framework: a toolkit to identify research assets and improve data management in research led institutions

Although vast quantities of data are being created within higher education, few institutions have formal strategies in place for curating these research outputs in the longterm. Moreover there appears to be a lack of awareness as to exactly what data are held and whether they are being managed. In response to these concerns the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) issued a call for proposals to develop and implement a Data Audit Framework suited to the needs of the UK higher education research communities. The Data Audit Framework (DAF) Development project was funded to produce an audit methodology, online toolkit, and a registry. Four additional implementation projects were funded to test the toolkit and promote its uptake. This paper outlines the audit methodology, introduces the online toolkit, and provides feedback on implementing the Data Audit Framework.

A comparative study of international approaches to enabling the sharing of research data

A DCC and JISC report that compares policies, strategies, infrastructure and services for sharing research data across OECD member countries

DRAMBORA interactive: user guide

Developed jointly by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE), the Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA) represents the main intellectual outcome of a period of pilot repository audits undertaken by the DCC throughout 2006 and 2007. It 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. Within DRAMBORA, digital curation is characterised as a risk-management activity; the job of a digital curator is to rationalise the uncertainties and threats that inhibit efforts to maintain digital object authenticity and understandability, transforming them into manageable risks. Six stages are implicit within the process. Initial stages require auditors to develop an organisational profile, describing and documenting the repository's mandate, objectives, activities and assets. Latterly, risks are derived from each of these, and assessed in terms of their likelihood and potential impact. Finally, auditors are encouraged to conceive of appropriate risk management responses to the identified risk. The process enables effective resource allocation, enabling repository administrators to identify and categorise the areas where shortcomings are most evident or have the greatest potential for disruption. The process itself is an iterative one, and therefore subsequent recursions will evaluate the effectiveness of prior risk management implementations. DRAMBORA Interactive is an on-line tool built to facilitate the assessment process and guide the auditor through the stages of the methodology. DRAMBORA can be used at http://www.repositoryaudit.eu/

Risk management foundations for digital libraries : DRAMBORA (Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment)

This paper proposes the use of the DRAMBORA (Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment), the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE) audit toolkit for digital repositories, as a tool to ensure the preservation capabilities of digital libraries. Digital repositories lie at the heart of digital libraries: ensuring long-term sustainability of their content is a fundamental responsibility of a digital library system and environment. DRAMBORA is designed to facilitate the assessment of digital repositories’ risk exposure: it facilitates internal audit by providing repository administrators with a means to assess their capabilities, identify their weaknesses, and recognize their strengths. The toolkit represents the latest complementary development in an ongoing international effort to conceive criteria, means and methodologies for audit and certification of trustworthy digital repositories. DRAMBORA already includes the ten CRL principles for digital preservation repositories. As part of the ongoing developments of the toolkit we are investigating its applicability within the digital library domain, and the identification of core principles of digital preservation that can be incorporated into the DELOS Digital Library Reference Model, to ensure that digital libraries conforming to the reference model have preservation functionality

Business Archives (Full Scale Pilot 4)

This report contains information gathered during the execution of E-ARK Pilot 4: Business Archives

Detailed Pilots Specification

The Electronic Archiving Service consists of a series of activities covered by software tools and manual workflow steps. These tools are currently partly in existence, some are being developed by E-ARK project, many more are to be added by developments of the digital preservation community in the future. The role of this report is to identify the most relevant scenarios for the E-ARK Service, define which scenario which level of activity is needed in order to bridge the gap of the currently existing solutions (e.g. integration, software development, interface definition

Documentation, Common Information and Short Overview of the E-ARK pilots

This report contains the common information and short overview of the pilots, along with references to the final version of the Pilot Definition Excel files and Pilot Documentation Packages

Recommended Practices and Final Public Report on Pilots

This report summarizes pilot activities, achievements and best practice recommendations using the following chapter structure: Chapter 1 - This introductory chapter. Chapter 2 - Planning and executing the E-ARK pilots Summary of all pilot related activities in the 3 years of the pilot, from planning to evaluation. Chapter 3 - Pilot overview A brief overview of the full-scale and additional pilots. Chapter 4 - Pilot report Summary of the pilot execution and results with recommended practices and further development recommendations. The chapter consists of the following sections for each full-scale pilot: Pilot scenario details Execution report Changes to previous plans Feedback report, and Recommended practices and lessons learnt. Chapter 4 ends with an overview of the external evaluations performed by non-EARK member organizations. Chapter 5 - Pilot evaluation Evaluation of the full-scale pilot against project objectives and success criteria. Chapter 6 - Referenced documents and web pages Appendix 1 – Extract from E-ARK Description of Wor