PARSE.Insight and APARSEN Reaching a Common Vision for digital preservation research David Giaretta

PARSE.Insight – Important source of information about users and their views – Identified fundamental threats which infrastructure can address APARSEN – Creating a common vision for digital preservation research – Create a Virtual centre of Excellence

Common Vision

Overview of APARSEN FP7 Network of Excellence 6.8 M€ from EU 4 years 32 partners

Rationale and scope Funding for an NoE in Call 6 is targeted at reinforcing excellence in Europe by structuring the research capacity in those research disciplines which remain fragmented and would significantly benefit from consolidation. Regarding the research fields under this call (digital preservation, digital libraries, cultural heritage) previously funded work in form of Networks of Excellence (i.e. DELOS and EPOCH) should be taken into account. It is not excluded to present proposals for further integration of research capacity in digital libraries or cultural heritage. However, this should be well justified in terms of the need to overcome continuing and harmful fragmentation and not duplicate the essence of the work already done. The scale of the digital preservation challenge, both in quantity and complexity, goes beyond the capacity of single institutions or sectors. To tackle this challenge adequately requires concerted and orchestrated efforts, critical mass, as well as synergies of ideas, technology solutions and practices – and this across disciplines, organisations and across national borders. Stakeholders within and beyond the existing digital preservation community need to be mobilised. Consequently, there could be scope for a Network of Excellence in structuring digital preservation research for the future.

.... Proposals should argue convincingly that the fragmentation of current research effort is hindering research and progress in the area, demonstrate clearly that they bring together existing European excellence in the different research fields involved, and be clear about the potential for sustainable commitments between the research organisations post-project, including the potential for influence on and leverage of national research activities and funding.

Aims of the project The APARSEN NoE brings together an extremely diverse set of practitioner organisations and researchers in order to bring coherence, cohesion and continuity to research into barriers to the long-term accessibility and usability of digital information and data, exploiting our diversity by building a long-lived Virtual Centre of Digital Preservation Excellence.

Building on... OAIS Reference Model CASPAR PLANETS DPE SHAMAN PARSE.Insight LOTAR Alliance for Permanent Access Audit & Certification standard Industrial Vendors } WePreserve

Why is APARSEN as it is? Need to deal with all types of digitally encoded information – Many complex things Projects like CASPAR, SHAMAN have provided evidence that we know how to approach this with intellectual rigor – Research needed for specifics Things are not cleanly split – RECURSION is key concept PARSE.Insight has provided a great deal of evidence about what people are concerned about Audit & certification will be in place in the next year or so Vision for 2020 and 2030 developed

Approach use cross-sectoral cooperation to overcome fragmentation of the research field and to avoid redundancy and duplication of effort; support sustainable integration of research resources and capacities (researchers, services, teams institutions, organisations); NoEs are expected to implement a Joint Programme of Activities that requires a formal commitment of the participating organisations. COMMON TERMINOLOGY IS VITAL

Archival Information Package Preservation Description Information Preservation Description Information Content Information further described by Package Description Packaging Information derived from described by delimited by identifies Data Object Data Object Representation Information Representation Information Physical Object Digital Object Structure Information Semantic Information Reference Information Provenance Information Context Information Fixity Information Other Representation Information Interpreted using Bit adds meaning to Access Rights Information Interpreted using 1 * * OAIS Archival Information Package

Where is Digital Preservation research done? Universities? Libraries Archives? Scientific Research Laboratories? Manufacturers? Vendors?

32 Partners from – Research laboratories – National libraries – Manufacturers – Software vendors

PARTNERS AIRBUS APA BL CERN CINES CINI CSC KNAW-DANS DNB DPC ESA FORTH FRD FTK GLOBIT HA /AFPUM ICT IKI INMARK KB LIBER LTU MRL ONB SBA STFC STM TESSELLA UKDA UNITN UPAT

E-Infrastructures Project profile & origins 19 Research (Digital Preservation) Virtual Centre of Excellence APARSEN Network of Excellence National libraries and archives Vendors: IBM/Microsoft Tessella Universities & Research Institutes Big science: CERN/MPI/HA/ STFC/ CINES Industrial: Airbus, SMEs CASPAR PLANETS SHAMAN HLEG Sci data e-Infr PARSE.Insight HLEG Digital Library ESA LTDP APA GENESI-DR DPC, nestor, STM, LIBER Users Innovators SCIDIP-ES

Integration VisionInternal workshops Common tools & env Staff exchanges Research subset Research integration Spread Excellence European Organisations and researchers USA Asia Australisia etc Embed research Internal sharing ideas Refine and integrate ideas Research Formal qualificationsTraining & awareness Integrated research, best practice, services, tools Vision is linked into all research WPs

Trust Certification of repositories Reputation and trustability of datasets, publications and people Authenticity Common testing environments Sustainability Business cases Preservation Cost/benefit analysis Transfer of custody – who to hand over to and what to hand over Storage solutions Usability Intelligibility Use by common tools Cross domain usability Interoperability Access Identify of datasets, publication, people Rights and responsibilities Policies and governance

Magic? no-one has all the answers, and no-one can even see all the questions despite that we all tend to defend our own area of work in which we have invested effort

Approaches no-one has all the answers, and no-one can even see all the questions despite that we all tend to defend our own area of work in which we have invested effort It is much easier to work within our own silos but much more difficult to cut across the boundaries It is easy to convince ourselves that our work has wide applicability (if only others would recognise the brilliance of our work and use it!) There are many solutions in search of a problem

Testing We are not mad We do useful things However we are forced to “over-sell” what we do APARSEN must try to provide a more realistic view Each tool/technique has strengths and weaknesses, applies to some digital objects and not others TESTING KEEPS US HONEST!