Transforming repositories: from repository managers to institutional data managers ECA 2010, 8th European Conference on Digital Archiving, Geneva, April 2010 Steve Hitchcock, David Tarrant and Leslie Carr School of Electronics & Computer Science Steve Hitchcock

Not everyone can be a digital archiving specialist

Growth of Open Access Digital Repositories Generated from Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) Generated from Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) Both charts generated 23 April 2010

ROAR repository format profile To access a format profile:  Find chosen repository in ROAR, open [Record Details] Format profiles not available for all repositories in ROAR ROAR disclaimer: Full-text formats is based on automatic file-format identification and is prone to errors This profile for Australian Research Online repository From Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR)

Digital repositories diversifying: institution-wide outputs ScienceTeaching ResearchArts KeepIt exemplar preservation repositories

Digital Preservation Tools for Repository Managers A practical course in five parts presented by the KeepIt project in association with Module 1, Organisational issues, audit, selection and appraisal School of ECS, University of Southampton, 19 January 2010 Twitter hashtag #dprc (digital preservation repository course)

Module 1, Organisational issues, audit, selection and appraisal School of ECS, University of Southampton, 19 January 2010 Module 3, Primer on preservation workflow, formats and characterisation Westminster-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, March 2010 Module 5, Trust, of the repository, of the tools and services it chooses University of Northampton, 30 March 2010

Course structure Module 1. Organisational issues Scoping, selection, assessment, institutional parameters (19 January 2010) Module 2. Costs Lifecycle costs for managing digital objects, based on the LIFE approach, and institutional costs (5 February) Module 3. Description Describing content for preservation: provenance, significant properties and preservation metadata (2 March) Module 4. Preservation workflow tools available in EPrints for format management, risk assessment and storage, and linked to the Plato planning tool from Planets (17-18 March) Module 5. Trust (by others) of the repository’s approach to preservation; trust (by the repository) of the tools and services it chooses (30th March)

KeepIt course participant numbers jisckeepit KeepIt course 3: thanks as well to all participants: 16 for course 1 (from 11 institutions), 15 (from 11) yesterday. Great commitment 03 Mar 2010 jisckeepit KeepIt course: "did you really think it would only be you left by the last module". Yes, but I was wrong. Course 1, 16; course 5, Mar 2010 Source:

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.”

Tools module 1 The Data Asset Framework (DAF), Sarah Jones, University of Glasgow, and Harry Gibbs, University of Southampton The AIDA toolkit: Assessing Institutional Digital Assets, Ed Pinsent, University of London Computer Centre

Evaluation module 1

Tools module 2 Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS), Costs, Policy, and Benefits in Long-term Digital Preservation, Neil Beagrie, Charles Beagrie Ltd consultancy LIFE 3 : Predicting Long Term Preservation Costs, Brian Hole, The British Library

Evaluation module 2 “Impressed with LIFE3 tool. I hope it is further developed. I like the way it works and can provide, comparatively quickly, some indication of likely costs. Useful and practical”

Tools module 3 Significant characteristics, Stephen Grace and Gareth Knight, Kings College London PREMIS, Open Provenance Model

Analyse Check Action Migration Emulation Storage selection Format identification, versioning File validation Virus check Bit checking and checksum calculation Tools e.g. DROID JHOVE FITS Preservation planning Characterisation: Significant properties and technical characteristics, provenance, format, risk factors Risk analysis Tools Plato (Planets) PRONOM (TNA) P2 risk registry (KeepIt) INFORM (U Illinois) KB Preservation workflow

Tools module 4 EPrints preservation apps, including the storage controller, Dave Tarrant and Adam Field, University of Southampton Plato, preservation planning tool from the Planets project, Andreas Rauber and Hannes Kulovits, TU Wien

Steve Jobs launches Apple iPad Picture by curiouslee “75 million people already own iPod Touches and iPhones. That's all people who already know how to use the iPad. ”

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.”

Tools module 5 DRAMBORA, Digital Repository Audit Method Based On Risk Assessment, Martin Donnelly, Digital Curation Centre, University of Edinburgh TRAC, Trusted Repository Audit and Certification: criteria and checklist

Evaluation: DRAMBORA “We will definitely be investigating DRAMBORA further”

KeepIt course time Module 1 5h 20 mins group work 3h (56%) Module 2 5h 05 mins group 2h 30 mins (49%) Module 3 5h 20 mins group 3h (56%) Module 4 day 1 5h 15 mins group 3h (57%) Module 4 day 2 4h 30 mins group 3h 30 mins (inc. panel) (78%) Module 5 5h 15 mins group 2h (38%) Total 30h 45 mins group 17h (55%)

KeepIt course summary in tweets jisckeepit KeepIt course 1, result 1: senior directors at Northampton U. support use of DAF Mon, 08 Feb 2010http://bit.ly/cFcsas digitalfay uploaded my first file to the cloud using #eprints next stop: comprehensive bitstream preservation policies for repository content Thu, 18 Mar 2010 digitalfay very impressed with end-to-end logical preservation process #eprints3.2 (risk audit) to #planetsway (planning) & back again (action) Thu, 18 Mar 2010 jisckeepit KeepIt course 4: practical-make a preservation plan in Plato, upload it to EPrints and it enacts the plan on your collection. Magic! Mon, 22 Mar 2010 jisckeepit KeepIt course: There's now a substantial group of repository managers out there ready and able to apply appropriate preservation tools Wed, 31 Mar 2010 absolutely - thanks to all the tutors & organisers for a fantastic course which made all the long train journeys worth it Tue, 06 Apr 2010 jisckeepit KeepIt course 5: revision, evaluation and concluding thoughts - the last hurrah. Complete course slides now at Thu, 08 Apr 2010 Selected tweets from Twapperkeeper for #dprc

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

Credits KeepIt team at the University of Southampton Les Carr, PI, Steve Hitchcock, project manager, David Tarrant, developer KeepIt preservation exemplar repositories are led by: Simon Coles (eCrystals, University of Southampton) Stephanie Meece (University of the Arts London) Debra Morris (EdShare, University of Southampton) Miggie Pickton (Nectar, University of Northampton) Thanks to all KeepIt course tutors and tutees KeepIt is funded by JISC (to Sept. 2010) as part of its Information Environment Programme http://preservation.eprints.org/keepit/