Virtual Centre of Excellence and Common Vision

• Outline of the Common Vision
• The plans for the VCoE

ACCESS
Without the ability to provide access to digital objects and data within a repository digital preservation fails.
APARSEN will provide some of the answers as to how access can be maintained through work on identifiers and citability, data policies and governance, and digital rights.

• How can we look after DRM?
• What makes for good governance?
• Set up of persistent identifier services?
• Are users satisfied with the proposed value added persistent identifier services?
• Persistent Identifiers – there are so many to choose from; will they all survive? The importance of linking data to people to organisations to publications, each with their own identifier systems – raises important challenges. We propose a practical framework to address these challenges.

USABILITY
APARSEN will be examining issues relating to interoperability, intelligibility and scalability to help develop a roadmap for how data and digital objects can remain useable and understandable in the long-term.

• D16.1 Software repository
  What software is likely to be successful in helping preserve a certain kind of digital object?
• D25.1 Interoperability objectives and approaches
  Recommendations and guidelines for ensuring interoperable digital preservation services are presented as well as analysis of current situation and future requirements.
• D25.2 Interoperability Strategies
  A methodology for capturing, modelling, managing and exploiting various interoperability dependencies is proposed.
• D27.1 Recommendations about scalability
  Scalability needs and gaps are identified. Recommendations on scalability of tools and services are provided.

TRUST
The issue of trust is at the core of all digital preservation work. How do we trust that a digital object or data is what it claims to be? APARSEN will address issues of trust through work on testing environments, authenticity and provenance, annotation and data quality, and repository certification.

The APARSEN team has been working hard over the past year and some of the results about the important issue of Trust and digital preservation are now available.
[Download not found] ([Download not found] for print quality)

• D14.1 Report on testing environments
  Proposed common testing approach provided as well as a framework within which to evaluate efficacy and applicability of proposed preservation tools and techniques.
• D24.1 Report on Authenticity and Plan for Interoperable Authenticity Evaluation System
  The main events that impact digital objects during their lifecycle in terms of authenticity and provenance are investigated.
• D24.2 Implementation and testing of an Authenticity Protocol
  Authenticity – how can we be sure the right evidence is collected as digital holdings are transformed and handed on to the next in the chain of preservation, and how can people evaluate that evidence coming from a multitude of systems? We have some of the answers.

• D33.1B Report on Peer Review of Digital Repositories
  Which repositories can be trusted to look after our valuable digitally encoded information?
  The birth of the European Framework for Audit and Certification of Digital Repositories is described “warts and all” but it looks practical – not inventing a new standard but bringing together the DSA, DIN 31644 and ISO 16363 into a consistent 3 level system.
• D33.1A Report on peer review of research data in scholarly communication
  What about data quality? Can we be sure that the data sets supporting publications are also peer reviewed? We have no answers here but we at least identify the problems clearly – perhaps you have the solution.
• D26.1 Report and Strategy on Annotation, Reputation and Data Quality
  How can we judge data quality, how can reputation and annotation be used to help us in doing that?

SUSTAINABILITY
Digital repositories must be sustainable if they are to meet their preservation commitments in the medium to long-term. Work within APARSEN on topics such as cost/benefit analysis, preservation services, storage, and business cases will seek to bring together disparate research around this topic to help us build sustainable repositories

APARSEN brochure on Sustainability (here for print quality)

• D21.1 Overview of preservation services
  Study of services related to long-term digital preservation, the needs for them and approaches to classify them.
  What is meant by services for digital preservation (more in section 2)? What types of high-level service could there be (more in section 3)? What implementations exist of these high-level services (more in section 3)? How do the high-level services cover the range of what is required for a trustworthy digital repository (more in section 4)?
• D23.1 Storage solutions summary of inputs
  What options are available for storage, including in-house and use of external storage providers?
• D23.2 Storage solutions analysis report
  An integrated view of the options for storage solutions for preservation of digital resources.
• D32.1 Report on cost parameters for digital repositories
  High level analysis of published cost models as well as the initial findings of a review of their cost parameters is provided.
• D32.2 Report on testing of cost models and further analysis of cost parameters
  The results of the analysis of cost parameters and the testing of cost models used within digital preservation both for services and repositories is provided. The relationship between costs and benefits is also reviewed in the context of digital preservation.
• D36.1 Business preparedness report
  The preparedness in accordance to the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Task Force have been mapped to identify implementation gaps.
• D36.2 Exemplar business cases
  Focuses on the lessons learnt from exemplary business cases, of economically-sustainable digital preservation initiatives.

INTEGRATION
APARSEN will align activities, resources and working practices across partner organisation.

• D13.2 Report about Standardisation Activities: Progress to Year 3
  Standardisation information – report on progress so far.
• D13.1 Report about standardisation activities: progress to year 2

SPREADING EXCELLENCE

• D43.2 Report on launch of digital preservation training portal for VCoE
  An on-line training portal has been launched.
• D42.1 Report on existing initiatives and curricula regarding digital long term preservation
  An overview of Digital Preservation curricula and courses in academia, Higher Education and Continuing Professional Education. The survey conducted compares the current provision in formal qualification opportunities within and beyond the library and information sciences.
• D42.1a Annex for Report on existing initiatives and curricula regarding digital long term preservation
  If you have any corrections or additions to this material please tell us [intlink id=”30600″ type=”page”]using the form here[/intlink]
• D44.3 Report on interactive map of stakeholders in digital preservation
  Describes the online application and outlines procedures for continuing maintenance organised by a Virtual Centre of Excellence.
• D43.1 Survey for the Assessment of Training Material/Assessment of Digital Curation Requirements
  What training materials are available and how can we put together a consistent, coherent set of training materials?

We hope you will find these reports informative and will be excited by the proposals which make sure that these paper reports give rise to practical help for funders, repositories, publishers and users of all levels of expertise..

APARSEN organised webinars and workshops to discuss all these and more.