An update on the KeepIt projectfor the JISC exemplars meeting
Steve Hitchcock and Dave TarrantECS, University of Southampton
London, 14 June 2010
Digital repositories diversifying: institution-wide outputs
Science Teaching
Research Arts
KeepIt exemplar preservation repositories
KeepIt has two strands
• People: in our case, repository managers• Technology: principally, preservation tools
Module 1, Organisational issues, audit, selection and appraisalSchool of ECS, University of Southampton, 19 January 2010
Module 3, Primer on preservation workflow, formats and characterisationWestminster-Kingsway College, London, 2 March 2010
Module 2, institutional and lifecycle preservation costs School of ECS, University of Southampton, 5 February 2010
Module 4, Putting storage, format management and preservation planning in the repository
University of Southampton, 18-19 March 2010
Module 5, Trust, of the repository, of the tools and services it chooses University of Northampton, 30 March 2010
Evaluation: course structure
“Structure and development through the course was excellent. Presentations and practicals gave good introductions to all the tools. Applicability sometimes focussed too much on IRs and research data”
Course evaluation summary
“Many of these tools are, of necessity, complex in scope and time consuming. The challenge is to understand which one to use in which situation and
to what depth to engage with it.”
Evaluation module 4
“This part of the course made me appreciate how big the area of preservation is and also the amount of research undertaken in this area.”
Objectives: EPrints preservation tools
All exemplars want to upgrade to EPrints version 3.2 and apply the preservation tools. The speed with which this can happen depends on local IT support and repository service providers.
Objectives: type-specific exemplars
The two type-specific repositories want to specialise and optimise the tools
• Edshare: to identify a typical format profile for teaching and learning repositories and assess the preservation implications• eCrystals: to add the two main formats used in the field to the tools, and to seek to coordinate this with the organisations who maintain the formats
Objectives: institution-wide exemplars
No two exemplars are the same, and the institution-wide exemplars are taking different approaches:
• NECTAR (Northampton) is using DAF to estimate, anticipate and scope its content requirements in coming years• UAL Research Online is using DRAMBORA’s risk-based approach to assess its preservation requirements
Preservation costs
• eCrystals contributed to KRDS2 survey
• All exemplars and trainees have been invited to evaluate LIFE3 beta
Lessons from the KeepIt course• The digital preservation community has produced an
array of tools covering most requirements.• Repository managers have responded positively to
practice with these tools.• Repository managers need to act to shape their
repositories for the next phase of development: expansion; diversification or focus.
• These tools support this process, as well as the technical management of digital preservation.
• Still need to reduce complexity and make tools simpler for non-specialists.
• One approach is to integrate tools into familiar interfaces, such as repositories.
• This is a great story for digital preservation
Preservation Repository Exemplars
• How do we exemplify? • What does it mean to exemplify?The exemplar repositories have the opportunity to present to, and influence, their peers, in their communities, in their fields. Other repositories want to hear from their peers what has been achieved, and they are more likely to emulate that experience than they are to emulate experts.