A centre of expertise in data curation and preservation UKOLN Open ForumIWMW 2006 14 June 2006 Funded by: This work is licensed under the Creative Commons

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation

UKOLN Open Forum IWMW 2006 14 June 2006

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.

Digital Curation: A Framework for Managing and

Preserving E-mail Records

Maureen Pennock Digital Curation Centre, UKOLN

UKOLN Open Forum, IWMW 2006, 14 June 2006



Today’s talk• The DCC

• Background & context

• What is digital curation?

• DCC aims & objectives

• Digital Curation & E-mails• Why curate e-mails?

• Life-cycle perspective

• Stakeholders & roles

• Framework



UK Digital Curation Centre• JISC and the e-Science Core Programme funding

• for development, services and outreach in digital curation

• for a research programme

• Impetus to action• Growth in e-Science activity and data creation• Recognition that continuing access to digital

information is crucial

• Launched early 2004



What is Digital Curation?• Digital curation is all about maintaining and

adding value to a trusted body of digital information for current and future use; specifically, we mean the active management and appraisal of data over the life-cycle of scholarly and scientific materials.

• Enables organisations to address the many

challenges of effectively managing, preserving, and re-using digital materials

• A challenge best tackled collaboratively



DCC Objectives• Lead a vibrant international research programme to improve

quality in data curation and digital preservation

• Deliver effective, efficient and high demand services

• undertake evaluation of tools, methods, standards and policies

• work with the community to establish registries of tools and technical information

• Create an active, innovative and collaborative Associates Network

• Connect communities

• Universities and Research institutions

• Scientific data and documents

• International & cross-sector

• Achieve the ‘virtuous circle’



DCC Research• Annotation in Databases• Data archiving• Socio-economic and legal issues• Metadata extraction and curation• Provenance and databases• Data transformation, integration and publishing• Security• Supporting technologies• 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• Development of a Representation Information

Registry/Repository (DCC RIR)• Development of recommendations for tools and methods for

generating Representation Information• Creating testbeds for digital curation tools• Creating auditing and certification processes for trusted

repositories



DCC Services• Information Services

• Community-developed Digital Curation Manual• Briefing Papers• Technology Watch, Legal Watch, Standards Watch• Case Studies• Best Practice Checklists

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

conferences• Helpdesk

• Audit and Certification Services



DCC summary• Support and promote continuing improvement

in the quality of data curation and preservation activity

• Nurture strong community relationships between practitioners, researchers, and curators

• Address digital curation from all aspects of the records life-cycle

• Develop and promote curation knowledge, tools and techniques

• Identify and research new organisational, technical, and supporting curation challenges



Why curate e-mails?• E-mails are records too• Misconceptions concerning ‘ownership’• Subject to technological obsolescence• More complex than people think

• It’s not just about e-mails

• Legal requirements• Financial consequences• Historically and culturally valuable



Life-cycle model



Stakeholders & Roles• The range of stakeholders that affect the

survival of digital material cuts across the whole lifecycle; everyone plays an important role• Management & policy-makers• Users - creators & receivers of e-mail records• Records Managers• IT staff

• System & mail-server administration• Local Area network (LAN) Manager

• Archivists (‘Curators’)• Re-users



Creation• E-mails must be:

• Well-formed• Well-managed (re - sent items)

• Important elements:• Good creation/responding practices

• Inserting metadata• Headers – subject line, addresses• Message body - context

• Message formats• Attachments• Complying with house-style

• Guidance must be provided for users on:• Acceptable use of e-mail system• Organisation policy on the above



Active Use• E-mails must be:

• Well-managed (re - sent & received items)• Captured into organisational record-keeping system

• Important elements:• Identifying e-mail records from non-records• Organisational retention requirements• Meeting legal requirements• Proper filing of e-mail records• Deletion of transient e-mails• Proper filing of e-mail records• Saving e-mail records independently of e-mail client



Archiving• E-mails must be:

• Captured and transferred into organisational archival repository

• Whole - comprising message body, headers & attachments• Archival metadata must be created and linked• Persistent identifiers must be assigned• Authenticity of the e-mails must be verified• Integrity of e-mails maintained

• Persistent links must be established between various parts of an e-mail (and also with other related records)

• Storage must be secured from unauthorised or malicious access

• Access rights must be implemented



Preservation• E-mails must be:

• Stored in a format that allows authenticity, integrity, & access to be ensured over time

• Migrated to avoid technological obsolescence• This includes attachments

• Authenticity requirements must be determined• Preservation strategy must be developed and tested• Preservation metadata must be collected and

maintained• Storage infrastructure must also be carried through

time• Organisational and cultural challenges must be

addressed



Access & Re-use• E-mails must be:

• Accessible for appropriate re-users• Exported in an appropriate and usable format

• Legal access and re-use restrictions must be observed

• Re-use software may be needed• Different re-users may have different re-use

requirements• E-mails can be re-used for very different purposes

to why they were originally created



Conclusions• Curation begins at source: curation activities

therefore start at the creation stage• Stakeholder responsibilities cannot easily be

allocated to one specific stage in the life-cycle• Communication between stakeholder groups is

essential to achieve successful curation• Policy and training are key elements of curation• Proprietary formats severely hinder long-term

preservation and access• The ‘do-nothing’ and print-to-paper approaches are

not appropriate approaches to managing and preserving e-mail records



Thank you.

Questions?

Maureen [email protected]

Join the DCC Associates Network at http://www.dcc.ac.uk

Documents

A centre of expertise in data curation and preservation UKOLN Open ForumIWMW 2006 14 June 2006 Funded by: This work is licensed under the Creative Commons