Long-Term Knowledge Retention Joshua Lubell Manufacturing Systems Integration Division, NIST FIRM’s Forum at FOSE March 20, 2007

The problem Too much digital data! –It takes about 15 minutes for the world to churn out new digital information equivalent to the entire collection in US Library of Congress Proprietary file formats –Expected lifetime of typical manufacturing software application only 3 years Short-lived Computing hardware and software –Expected lifetime of today’s storage/retrieval technologies only 10 years Products often outlive computer software/hardware by an order of magnitude –Aircraft can last 50 years or more –Healthcare records should be preserved through the patient’s lifetime, and perhaps beyond

Data standards Necessary to avoid being locked into a vendor format or application that could disappear in the near future Likely to be more stable than proprietary tools/formats But data standards are only part of the solution –Information is more than just data!

Information = Data + Interpretation Data Object Representation Information (metadata) Information Object from Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (ISO 14721:2003)

An information package Content Information Preservation Description Information Information Objects ReferenceReference ProvenanceProvenance ContextContext FixityFixity Sub-categories

Tools for tackling LTKR Standards for representing digital artifacts –STEP – ISO (product data) –XML (documents) –Graphics, audio, video, multimedia standards –Scientific modeling standards Standards for representing preservation information –Ontology languages –Packaging standards (METS, XFDU) Digital format registries (UK Archives, Harvard, Univ. of Maryland)

March 2006 LTKR workshop Diverse group of 35 met at NIST –Industry, academia, government equally represented Immediate goal: identify challenges, research, and implementation issues in digital preservation of information – Emphasis on design and manufacturing Next step: develop roadmap identifying areas of investigation and experimental testbeds for archival of design and manufacturing information

Observations LTKR seen by many as a process –Apply archiving methodology (e.g. OAIS reference model) to collection of digital artifacts –“Repository-centric” Alternative “document-centric” view –Preservation and authenticity paramount –Archival process and data representation secondary

More observations Barriers to archiving –Lack of understanding, institutional support –Each scenario has its own unique requirements –Lack of formal methods and standards Need a way to measure the quality of an archiving process Library of Congress digital format sustainability criteria a good starting point Recommendations –Create tools, methods for capturing business and manufacturing process workflows –Collect and preserve case studies of archiving successes and failures –Develop metrology for digital archiving

Upcoming workshop Long Term Sustainment of Digital Information: Putting the Pieces Together –April 24-25, 2007 at NIST in Gaithersburg, Maryland –Part of Interoperability NIST – Questions we will attempt to answer –How can you predict the future effectiveness of a digital preservation solution? –What combination of technologies is optimal for achieving success at a reasonable cost? Registration deadline: April 9

The time is now Industry is feeling the pain –From a major aerospace company Vice President: Lack of archiving support could derail our efforts to move from a drawing-centric to a model-centric business model –Federal regulators recently fined Morgan Stanley $15M for failing to produce s sought in investigations Government recognizes the need –“Maintenance of and access to long-lived science and engineering data collections and Federal records” a funding priority according to Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) supplement to the President’s FY2007 budget The technologies we need are becoming increasingly available

Links/Contacts Interoperability NIST –April 23-25, 2007 – March 2006 LTKR workshop –Report: –Website: Me – –Phone: (301)