1. QA Focus Digital Preservation End of Programme Meeting: 5/99, 7/99, DiVLE and JISC/NSF International Digital Libraries

2. QA Focus AHDS The AHDS aids the discovery, creation and preservation of digital collections in the arts and humanities The AHDS is a UK national service funded by the JISC and the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB)

3. QA Focus JISC QA Focus has been set up to support the JISC's Information Environment programme by encouraging participating projects to develop appropriate quality assurance (QA) processes which will ensure that project deliverables comply with standards and best practices. QA Focus is provided by a partnership of UKOLN (University of Bath) and the AHDS.

4. QA Focus What Does QA Focus Cover? QA across the entire digital resource lifecycle (creation, management, collection development, access, repackaging,...). QA for: –Digitisation of resources –Software development –Metadata –Learning materials –Web –Deployment into service

5. QA Focus Contacting QA Focus For more information on the QA Focus visit the Web site at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/ Hamish James, Collections Manager, Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS) hamish.james@ahds.ac.uk

6. QA Focus OAIS (not OAI)

7. QA Focus Issues The content of digital resources is only accessible with the aid of intermediary technologies Digital resources are complex –Reliance on specific combination of formats, software and hardware to operate correctly I.T. develops rapidly and resources can become obsolete very quickly

8. QA Focus Digital Information Bitstream + logical format + functionality = Digital information media + file format + software = Digital information backupstandards ?

9. QA Focus Question Your project has ended, what will happen to the digital outputs you have created (data, metadata, software etc.)

10. QA Focus Planning for the Future Short-term: Initial technology still current and actively supported Medium-term: Initial technology still in use and supported, but no longer used for new work Long-term: Initial technology no longer used or supported

11. QA Focus How Soon? Short-term, ~ 0 - 5 years Medium-term ~ 5-10 years Long-term ~ 10+ years

12. QA Focus Question What will have happened to your digital outputs in 1, 5 and 10 years?

13. QA Focus After the Project Once a project is completed, what happens to its digital outputs 1.Live, (supported) system 2.Archived 3.‘Shelved’ 4.Abandoned

14. QA Focus Live System Who is running the system, and what is their commitment to it? What will happen if the system is shut down? Is the digital resource completed or on- going?

15. QA Focus Archived Is the digital resource going to an archival digital repository? Are only some aspects of the resource being archived? Will it be available for others to use? Will the resource be updated in the future?

16. QA Focus ‘Shelved’ Don’t Shelving a digital resource without active, on-going attention is highly likely to result in its loss –Media degradation –Software and hardware obsolecences –Loss of knowledge about the resource

17. QA Focus Abandoned May be appropriate, probably isn’t, think about archiving the resource instead

18. QA Focus User Interaction What to Preserve? Software Data

19. QA Focus Significant Characteristics Binding digital information to a particular medium does not ‘fix’ that information Need to understand the significant aspects of the digital information you are trying to preserve

20. QA Focus Significant Characteristics? Plain text –Characters, lines Word document –Characters, lines –Font, size, position –Styles, hyperlinks, bookmarks?

21. QA Focus Question What are the significant characteristics of your digital outputs?