1. Dependency Management
APARSEN Training “Access & Usability”
Florence, 17 – 18 September, 2014

2. Outline Digital Preservation Strategies Interoperability
Automatic Reasoning (for digital preservation)
Deliverable 25.1 “Interoperability Objectives and Approaches” (145 pages)
Deliverable 25.2 “Interoperability Strategies” (79 pages)
(available on the project website
Outline of presentation:
What is quality?
Attention for “Context”
Models that provide context
Data management is important for digital preservation and helps to measure / assess quality. DM is main topic of online course “Essentials 4 Data Support”

3. Digital Preservation Threats to future access to digital information
Format obsolescence
Not possible to render object
Operating system obsolescence
Hardware failure
What is it?

4. Digital Preservation Strategies
Technology preservation strategy
Technology emulation strategy
Digital information migration strategy

5. Interoperability What is interoperability? (exercise 1)
Why is it important for digital preservation?
DP = Interoperability with the future
It enables use and exchange of information/knowledge
Avoiding “vendor lock-in” (open standards)
Implies standardization and “trust”

6. Automatic Reasoning
Digital Preservation is based has a lot of dependencies
Are assumptions still valid in the future e.g.
Documentation is understandable
File format is still usable
Digital archive still has funding …

7. Can the OAIS Reference Model help us?
YES! The OAIS reference model will help us to be precise and unambiguous
More specific please…

12. Designated Community
An identified group of potential Consumers who should be able to understand a particular set of information. The Designated Community may be composed of multiple user communities. A Designated Community is defined by the Archive and this definition may change over time.

13. Representation Information
The information that maps a Data Object into more meaningful concepts. An example of Representation Information for a bit sequence which is a FITS file might consist of the FITS standard which defines the format plus a dictionary which defines the meaning in the file of keywords which are not part of the standard.
Another example is JPEG software which is used to render a JPEG file; rendering the JPEG file as bits is not very meaningful to humans but the software, which embodies an understanding of the JPEG standard, maps the bits into pixels which can then be rendered as an image for human viewing.

14. Example Digital object: Digitized Mediaeval charter
Designated community: historians (mediaevalists)
Representation information:
Digital image in JPEG-> JPEG standard ; JPEG software
Transcription in PDF -> PDF standard ; PDF viewer
Content in Latin -> English – Latin Dictionary ;
Annotations in XML -> ASCII Standard ….

15. Exercise Take a digital object as an example
This object has to be preserved
First give a description of the digital object
Describe the Designated Community (which assumptions do you make?)
Which Representation Information is required in order for the Designated Community to be able to understand the digital object?

16. Automatic Reasoning EPIMENIDES System developed by FORTH
Uses cases provided by DANS
Demonstrator:

17. Example 2014: We consider PDF as a durable format (facts and rules)
2014: We create a knowledge base expressing our knowledge concerning the PDF-format (e.g. Software to convert to PDF. Software to check whether PDF files are not corrupt (and still can perform their task)
2015 – 2023: We maintain and apply the knowledge base
2024: The knowledge base is drastically changed, e.g. because PDF format is obsolete
2024: As we have stored dependencies in a system we know what risks that threathen the usabilty of PDF files and we can take measurements (e.g. Migration / emulation)
(The knowledge base is created and maintained in the Epimenidis system)

18. Use Cases (Slides by Forth)
For plain users
For Archivists

19. For plain users: The user uploads a file or a zipped bundle of files
Upload your own digital objects

20. The system finds the tasks that usually make sense to apply to the uploaded digital objects
Rendering for this .txt file
Runnability for this .exe file
Requesting performability checking

21. Getting the results of the Dependency Analysis (the results of the automatic reasoning)
Reds: Inability to perform this task on this file
Greens: Ability to perform these tasks over these objects

22. Ability to explore the dependencies related to one task
Direct dependencies of Rendering Task

23. Use Case for Archivists: Aiding the Definition of new Tasks
Name of the new task
Define the dependencies of this task

24. Use Case for Archivists: Consequences of a Hypothetical Loss

25. Exploring the contents of its Knowledge Base
Explore the contents of the underling RDF/S triple store

26. Concluding Remarks (1/2)
Each interoperability objective or challenge can be considered as a kind of demand for the performability of a particular task (or tasks).
However each task for being performed has various prerequisites (e.g. operating system, tools, software libraries, parameters, etc). We call all these dependencies.
Standardization reduces the dependencies without vanishing them, moreover sometimes they can not be adopted
However, the ultimate objective is the ability to perform a task, not the compliance to a standard
We need an alternative approach which reduce the human effort
A dependency management approach
Each interoperability objective or challenge can be considered as a kind of demand for the performability of a particular task. However each task for being performed has various prerequisites or dependencies. The definition and adoption of standards (for data and services), aids interoperability because it is more probable to have (now and in the future) systems and tools that support these standards, than having systems and tools that support proprietary formats. From a dependency point of view, standardization essentially reduces the dependencies and makes them more easily resolvable; it does not vanish dependencies.
But the ultimate objective is the ability to perform a task, not the compliance to a standard. For these reasons we have proposed a dependency management approach that can reduce the human effort for DP services.

27. Concluding Remarks (2/2)
The proposed approach can be used for capturing converters and emulators and can be applied to concrete use cases
We have designed and implemented a proof of concept prototype (Epimenides) for testing whether the proposed reasoning approach behaves as expected.
We should also mention that since the implementation is based on W3C standards, it can be straightforwardly enriched with information coming from other external sources (i.e. SPARQL endpoints).
An advantage of our approach is that can be used for capturing converters and emulators that are basic preservation strategies.
Based on that approach we have designed and implemented a proof of concept prototype (Epimenides) for testing whether the proposed reasoning approach behaves as expected, that is based on W3C standards.

28. Value of the work done
Enables a flexible strategy of achieving interoperability by combining existing software
The offered automated reasoning could greatly reduce the human effort required for checking (or periodically monitoring) whether a task on a digital object is performable.
The proposed approach offers a flexible strategy of achieving interoperability by combining existing software, and vanishing a gap that prevents the performability of a task.
Also could greatly reduce the human effort required for checking (or periodically monitoring) whether a task on a digital object is performable.

29.
Proper data management obviously has influence on the quality of data. So proper traininig is an important issue.
“Data Essentials 4 Data Support” aims to improve the skills of data supporters.

30. Network of Excellence