A centre of expertise in data curation and preservation CETIS MDR SIG::28 June 2006::University of Bath Funded by: This work is licensed under the Creative

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation

CETIS MDR SIG :: 28 June 2006 :: University of Bath

Funded by:This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 UK: Scotland License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/scotland/ ; or, (b) send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

The Digital Curation Centre and the Representation Information

Registry/Repository

Maureen Pennock

DCC, UKOLN

CETIS MDR SIG, Bath, 28 June 2006



Today’s Talk

• The Digital Curation Centre• DCC teams & work areas• Introduction to Representation Information • Overview & benefits of the DCC

Representation Information Registry/ Repository (RIR)



Digital Curation

• Digital curation, broadly interpreted, is about maintaining and adding value to a trusted body of digital information for current and future use

• the active management and appraisal of data over the entire life-cycle



The Digital Curation Centre



The DCC• Launched in 2004• Established to help solve the extensive

challenges of digital preservation and curation, and to provide research, advice and support services to UK institutions

• Consortium project – 4 partners• 4 main teams distributed across the 4 UK

locations



Organisation to Engage & Collaborate

Industry

research collaborators

standards bodies

testbeds& tools

communities of practice: users

community support & outreach

research

development co-ordination

service definition & delivery

management & admin support

Collaborative Associates Network of DataOrganisations

curation organisations eg DPC



DCC Outreach• Raising Awareness and Dissemination

• Website (http://www.dcc.ac.uk )• International Journal of Digital Curation

• Annual International Conference

• Understanding Users and their Needs• Requirement Gathering

• Associates Network

• DCC Forum



DCC Services• Information Services

• Community-developed Digital Curation Manual• Briefing Papers & FAQ’s• Technology Watch, Standards Watch, Legal

Watch• Case Studies• Best Practice Checklists

• Advisory Services• Events: information days, workshops, training• Helpdesk

• Audit and Certification Services



DCC Research• Annotation in Databases• Data archiving• Socio-economic and legal issues• Metadata extraction and curation• Ontologies and data dictionaries• Provenance and databases• Data transformation, integration and publishing• Supporting technologies• Networks of trusted digital repositories• Organisational and cultural challenges to digital

curation



DCC Development• DCC Approach to Digital Curation (white

paper) – sets out the path for development activities:• Monitoring international standards• Creating testbeds for digital curation tools• Development of recommendations for tools and

methods for generating Representation Information

• Development of a Representation Information Registry/Repository (DCC RIR)



Representation Information

&

the DCC Representation Information Repository/ Registry



Representation Information



DCC RIR• Representation Information Registry/Repository• An essential service for institutions managing an

OAIS-type repository• Envisage network of RIR’s• Authoritative source of RI for a designated

community• DCC prototype demonstrator: based on 2 key

concepts to facilitate sharing of the curation effort• Descriptive ‘label’ (structural, semantic, other metadata) • Curation persistent ID



RI & RIR High-level view



RIR development as Registry

• Interface and protocols – JAXR “standard”• freebXML implementation• many access methods

• URL• Web Services• API• Etc..

• Findability• Persistent IDs

• What can we rely on?• Labels (to support automated processing)



RIR development as Repository

• Trusted repository of Rep. Info• Authenticity of information• Access control• Certificates/Digests

• Extensibility• Distributed/Shared network



Shared RIR• Provides the building blocks for institutions to develop

their own RI objects according to the types of data objects they hold

• Reduces the effort each institution has to expend• Benefits all those involved in the life cycle of data

objects• Data creators• Data curators• Data re-users



Benefits for creators & depositors• Helps content producers and depositors

prepare materials for ingest by:• Increasing awareness • Facilitating selection process• Indicating types of RI to be submitted• Minimising required RI through cumulative

deposits



Benefits for curators• Availability of a shared RIR offers a broad

range of benefits for curators, centres, archives and libraries:• Cost reduction in running digital archive• Reduces and shares effort• Provides tools to work with RI• Increases range of formats an archive can curate• Extends time for which files can be useful• Encourages community building



Benefits for re-users• Availability of the RIR for third-party re-users:

• Provides trusted, authoritative, secure RI• Allows users to rely on the authenticity and

integrity of data sources• Extends community able to use digital material by

enabling a large amount of RI to be searched and retrieved.



Future developments• RIR development activities tracked through

http://www.dcc.ac.uk• See also the dcc development wiki:

http://dev.dcc.ac.uk/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome

• CASPAR project http://www.casparpreserves.org

• Research programme of the TFPARS



Further information• DCC development website

http://dev/dcc/ac/uk• DCC development listserv

[email protected]

• DCC websitehttp://www.dcc.ac.uk



Thank You

Join the DCC Associates Network (it’s free!)

http://www.dcc.ac.uk/associates/

Documents

A centre of expertise in data curation and preservation CETIS MDR SIG::28 June 2006::University of Bath Funded by: This work is licensed under the Creative