a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 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 sa/2.5/scotland/ ; or, (b) send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Curation and FoI Maureen Pennock Digital Curation Centre, UKOLN, University of Bath

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Todays talk The DCC Background & context DCC aims & objectives Freedom of Information and s Digital Curation & s Why curate s? Life-cycle perspective Roles & Responsibilities

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 The DCC Established in 2004 to help solve the extensive challenges of digital preservation and curation, and to provide research, advice and support services to UK institutions Funded by JISC & the e-Science Core Programme Impetus to action Growth in e-Science activity and data creation Recognition that continuing access to digital information is needed

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 DCC Objective The purpose of our centre is to provide a national focus for research and development into curation issues and to promote expertise and good practice […] for the management of all research outputs in digital format. Both national and international

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 What is Digital Curation? 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. Enables organisations to address the many challenges of effectively managing, preserving, and re-using digital materials A challenge best tackled collaboratively

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Organisation to Engage & Collaborate Industry research collaborators standards bodies testbeds & tools communities of practice: users Community Development Research Agenda Tools and infrastructure User services management & admin support Collaborative Associates Network of Data Organisations curation organisations eg DPC

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Community Development

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 User Services

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Tools & Development DCC Approach to Digital Curation (white paper) – sets out the path for development activities: Monitoring international standards Developing a Representation Information Registry/Repository (DCC RIR) Developing recommendations for tools and methods for generating Representation Information Creating auditing and certification processes for trusted repositories

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 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 Cooperative & distributed infrastructures

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 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

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Freedom of Information Act & s

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 FoI and s: Relevancy FoI Act provides general right of access to information held by public authorities (with exceptions) Information – not just records s not specified in Act BUT… messages are information s therefore susceptible to FoI requests

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 FoI & s: Issues (I) Unclear responsibilities: as personal domain, not organisational property User reluctance to manage inbox Clash between IT and RM policies (if any) Enforcement problems Inappropriate content Undesirable content Embarrassing content

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 FoI & s: Issues (II) discovery carries inherent problems… Dispersed locations: IMAP; POP; Forwarded messages; mailbox; shared drive; ERMS; EDMS… Some may be inaccessible to systems admin or records managers Relevant data may (or may not) be In subject line In message content In message attachment (difficult to search) Sheer scale of challenge Not indexed for fast searching … high discovery costs

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 FoI & s: Issues (III) Coherence of message threads Admissibility of printed versions of s? Improper deletion/destruction procedures This is not just an issue for FoI Information (mis)management Risk (mis)management Can lead to all sorts of problems...

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March Curation

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Problem: From Analogue to Digital Digital communications now increasingly common Management and preservation has not kept pace with implementation and rollout remains a common and pervasive problem … to this from this…

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Best current solution: Curation curation: Encourages more efficient use of as a business tool Enables shared and efficient access to organisational information Facilitates compliance with legal requirements Provides framework for addressing risks of usage Addresses both disposal and preservation Is the best framework for good management across entire life-cycle

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Life-cycle model Generic model Takes control over the records throughout lifetime Meaningful chain of custody Requires compatibility of different stages Requires input from range of stakeholders Records Disposal?

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 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 messages Records Managers IT staff System & mail-server administration LAN Manager Archivists Re-users 'Curators'

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Issues for Creators & Recipients s must be: Well-formed Well-managed (even sent items!) Accessible Important elements: Good creation/response practices Inserting metadata Headers – subject line, addresses Message body - context Message formats Attachments Complying with house-style Good inbox management Compliance with organisational policy

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Issues for Curators s must be: Whole - comprising message body, headers & attachments Captured as appropriate into organisational document/records/archives management system Destroyed as appropriate Important policy and practical elements: Identifying records from non-records Organisational retention & legal requirements Proper filing of records Deletion of transient/unnecessary s Saving records independently of client Guidance and Training for users ( at all levels)

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Issues for Re-users s 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 s can be re-used for very different purposes to why they were originally created

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Conclusions Curation is the key to good management and meeting legal – including FoI - obligations Policy and training are key elements of curation Communication between stakeholder groups is essential to achieve successful curation See DCC website for resources

a centre of expertise in data curation and preservation National FoI Group Birmingham07 March 2007 Thank you. Questions? Maureen Pennock (Join the DCC Associates Network at