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The Digital Preservation Awards ceremony was held on Monday in London. Although suffering from a heavy cold it proved to be a very enjoyable evening.

For me the big take-away message from the event was the importance of JISC’s role as a funder of innovative digital preservation services and projects in the UK. Two out of three of the award winners had been established by JISC: a remarkable testament to its effectiveness in this field over the last decade.

Below is a photograph from the ceremony. Further information and a press release on the Awards can be found on the DPC website.

Digital Preservation Awards 2012 Ceremony

We are pleased to announce that the JISC-funded Research360 Project has released the summary stakeholder benefits analysis (based on the KRDS Benefits Framework) from the Research Data Management business case for the University of Bath. The 4 page document is available to download in PDF format from opus.bath.ac.uk/32509

The benefits summary covers the following groups:

University Community

• Academic Staff and Researchers
• Students
• Professional Services
• Institution

External Partners

• Industry and Commerce
• Public and Voluntary Sectors
• Government
• Society

Industry and private sector partnerships alongside public sector and voluntary sector partnerships are key elements of many university research programmes. Frequently partners sharing their practice, results data and laboratory methodologies can lead to vital knowledge transfer activities, improved services and products, creation of spin-out companies and further investment in the Higher Education sector.

As part of the Research360 project at the University of Bath, we are examining the data management implications, challenges and benefits associated with Faculty-Industry and Faculty-Not-for-Profit research collaborations. As part of this work, we have developed the summary list of stakeholder benefits that can arise from research data management in these collaborations. This list is now being shared with other universities and their research partners. We hope the generic list can be used as a brain-storming tool and assist in articulating benefits for selected stakeholders from research data management. Users can sharpen these short generic expressions of benefits into more focused value propositions for specific stakeholder audiences as required. Those interested in applying KRDS benefits analysis for stakeholders in research data preservation and curation as well as research data management will also find it of interest.

The Research360 project is funded by JISC and the stakeholder analysis has been developed by Charles Beagrie Ltd and UKOLN at the University of Bath.

The presentations from the Preservation & Archiving Special Interest Group (PASIG) conference in Dublin are now available online. This was one of the best digital preservation events I have attended in many years so I would encourage you all to take a look at the many excellent presentations. Topics included:
– digital preservation bootcamp
– storage trends and futures
– digital preservation research
– practitioners knowledge exchange, with case studies from

• – London School of Economics
• – UK Data Archive
• – LOTAR (Aerospace)
• – the National Library of New Zealand

– digital audiovisual preservation (organized by PrestoCentre)
– the costs of and cost models for digital preservation
– leveraging the cloud for digital preservation
– architecting for preservation at scale

We are pleased to announce that the Digital Preservation Coalition is offering its members a preview of the latest DPC Technology Watch Report ‘Digital Forensics and Preservation’ by Jeremy Leighton John of the British Library. This is the fourth report in the DPC technology watch series to have been commissioned with Charles Beagrie Ltd as series editors.

The report provides a broad overview of digital forensics with pointers to resources and tools that may benefit the preservation of digital cultural heritage. More specifically, the report focuses on the application of digital forensics to the curation of personal digital archives.

‘Digital forensics is associated in many people’s minds primarily with the investigation of crime. However, In recent years, digital forensics has also emerged as an essential source of tools and approaches for facilitating digital preservation, specifically for protecting and investigating evidence from the past,’ explained the author. ‘Institutional repositories and professionals with responsibilities for personal archives can benefit from using forensic tools and technique to address digital authenticity, accountability and accessibility.’

‘Forensic technology makes it possible to identify privacy issues, establish a chain of custody, employ write protection for capture and transfer of data, and detect forgeries. It can extract relevant metadata and content, it enables efficient indexing and searching, and it facilitates the management of access rights.’

Four more reports are in development – on Preservation, Trust and E-Journals; Preserving Computer Aided Design; Web Archiving; and Preservation Metadata.

The series editors have been supported by an Editorial Board drawn from DPC members and peer reviewers who have commented on the text prior to release. The Editorial Board comprises William Kilbride (Chair), Neil Beagrie (Principal Investigator and Managing Editor for the series), Janet Delve (University of Portsmouth), Sarah Higgins (Archives and Records Association), Tim Keefe (Trinity College Dublin), Andrew McHugh (University of Glasgow), and Dave Thompson (Wellcome Library).

The report is currently available as a preview for DPC members only and a login required. It will be available for general public release from the DPC website in Spring 2013.

The shortlist for the Digital Preservation Awards has been announced  this month  and we are very pleased that the work undertaken by the Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) partners in disseminating tools and key learning from the KRDS research projects has been recognised.

The shortlist for an outstanding contribution to teaching and communication in digital preservation in the last 2 years is as follows :

• The Digital Preservation Training Programme, University of London Computing Centre
• The Signal, Library of Congress
• Keeping Research Data Safe Project, Charles Beagrie Ltd and partners
• Digital Archaeology Exhibition, Story Worldwide Ltd

Keeping Research Data Safe has been funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee and the work undertaken by Charles Beagrie Ltd in partnership with 10 UK organisations (the Archaeology Data Service, the University of London Computer Centre, the UK Data Archive, UKOLN/DCC at the University of Bath, and the universities of  Cambridge, King’s College London, Oxford, Southampton, and UCL) together with OCLC Research in the USA.

The winners of the Digital Preservation Awards will be announced on 3rd December.

The Digital Preservation Coalition is today publishing online in PDF  the latest in its popular Technology Watch Reports ‘Intellectual Property Rights for Digital Preservation’ by Andrew Charlesworth of the University of Bristol.  The report was previously available as a preview to DPC members but is now publicly accessible. This is the third report in the DPC technology watch series to have been commissioned with Charles Beagrie Ltd as series editors.

Legal issues, in particular the process of obtaining copyright clearance for preservation and access of archived material, can contribute significantly to the cost and complexity of digital preservation. It is an area where the wider preservation community often needs to make its case with government and other legislators.

‘While a number of legal issues colour contemporary approaches to, and practices of, digital preservation, it is arguable that intellectual property law, represented principally by copyright and its related rights, has been by far the most dominant, and often intractable, influence,’ explained Andrew Charlesworth.

‘It’s essential for those engaging in digital preservation to understand the letter of the law and to be able to identify and implement practical and pragmatic strategies for handling legal risks in the pursuit of preservation objectives. Moreover, those engaging in digital preservation need to advance a coherent and cogent message to rights holders, policymakers and the public with regard to the relationship between intellectual property law and digital preservation. It is in the long-term interests of all stakeholders that modern intellectual property law permits the implementation of effective and efficient mechanisms of digital preservation.’

The series editors have been further supported by an Editorial Board drawn from DPC members and peer reviewers who have commented on the text prior to release. The Editorial Board comprises William Kilbride (Chair), Neil Beagrie (Principal Investigator and Managing Editor for the series), Janet Delve (University of Portsmouth), Sarah Higgins (Archives and Records Association), Tim Keefe (Trinity College Dublin), Andrew McHugh (University of Glasgow), Dave Thompson (Wellcome Library)

Five more reports are in development – on Preservation, Trust and E-Journals; Digital Forensics for Preservation; Preserving Computer Aided Design; Web Archiving; and Preservation Metadata.

You can download and read the whole series of current and past DPC Technology Watch reports in PDF format from the DPC website.

it was a real pleasure to attend the celebration of the DPC’s 10th anniversary this week at the House of Lords and to catch up with many friends and colleagues.

At the event, DPC Chairman Richard Ovenden and Lord MacNally, Minister of State for Justice, celebrated the achievements of the Digital Preservation Coalition over the past ten years, but  also highlighted the continuing risk to government, business, educational and cultural organisations and by society at large in failing to address the preservation of digital information. In his speech, Richard Ovenden pointed to the major improvements that have been made in the past ten years but highlighted recent studies which show how major data losses continue to be suffered:
• Websites of MPs Robin Cook, Claire Short no longer live
• Website of Woolworths plc and Welsh Language Board both lost
• After one year, 11% web resources shared through social media will be lost

A briefing from the TIMBUS project illustrates how the challenge of reliable access to data is no longer simply a concern for memory institutions or research centres:
• 94% of companies that suffer major data loss incidents go out of business in 2 years
• The global costs of data centre downtime are estimated at $426bn per annum
• Data creation and consumption is diverse in ways which could not have been imagined a decade ago. Mobile devices have started becoming more ubiquitous than power supply. In 2011 the global ‘on network and off-grid’ population reached at 48million – that is mobile phone users who don’t have access to power at home.

Formally established in July 2001 and endorsed at a House of Lords reception in February 2002, today the DPC proudly boasts just shy of forty established members. The energy and expertise of its staff and Executive Board has facilitated the hosting of well over sixty digital preservation training events; awarded dozens of scholarships via its Leadership Programme; commissioned leading edge Technology Watch Reports; produced fifty ‘What’s New in Digital Preservation?’ news round ups; has advised and lobbied government and other public sector on policy; it  is also  involved in two European Commission-funded initiatives (APARSEN and TIMBUS) and runs the biannual Digital Preservation Awards.

‘The successes of the Coalition in the last decade have been impressive’, noted Richard Ovenden the current chair, ‘and we have come a long way in addressing the challenge set for us in 2002’. But the question of how to ensure long term value from digital data remains problematic. ‘The need for digital preservation is growing in just the same way as the digital domain: in total size, in sheer complexity and in economic importance. ’

‘The question about preserving authentic digital records is not simply one for archives or libraries, explained William Kilbride of the DPC. ‘An article in the Economist recently reported that patent litigation between technology companies in the US was worth $200bn in 2011 – equivalent to 2% of GDP. ‘This may not make you think about digital preservation, until you realise that the best way to defend a court case is to cite authoritative records of innovation.’

‘In other words, digital preservation has vital role in protecting some of the most dynamic and innovative sectors of the economy.’

‘That’s just one example: health care, civil engineering, pensions, the recording industry, care services, research institutes, legal services and many more sectors need to maintain and exploit accurate and authoritative records over an extended period. No wonder that Gartner recently reported that 15% of companies would soon need to employ a digital archivist.’

In his speech, Richard Ovenden then looked to the next ten years. He observed that data is an asset and that preservation creates new opportunities, but only if organisations are clear about their own plans. He called on organisation to ask five simple questions:
• Do they know which data sets from the last decade are going to be valuable in the next?
• Do they have robust plans for the long-term exploitation to business-critical, high-value data?
• Do they have robust preservation plans to ensure long term access to data?
• How are they going to recruit or train staff with skills in digital preservation needs?
• How can they collaborate more closely to meet the challenge of digital preservation?

You can read the full DPC press release on the event on its website.

We are pleased to announce a new study and collaboration between the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Charles Beagrie Ltd (Neil Beagrie), and the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies Victoria University (Prof John Houghton) on the value and impact of the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC).

The BADC, based at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, is the Natural Environment Research Council’s (NERC) Designated Data Centre for the Atmospheric Sciences. Its role is to assist UK atmospheric researchers to locate, access, and interpret atmospheric data and to ensure the long-term integrity of atmospheric data produced by NERC projects. Since its establishment, the BADC has become the de facto point of contact for UK researchers needing access to the meteorological products of both the Met Office and the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF). There is also considerable interest from the international research community in BADC data holdings.

The BADC’s significance has grown considerably in the last decade or so and with the use of access statistics and user feedback it has generally been easy for the BADC to demonstrate that it offers a valuable service to its users. However, it is a much more challenging proposition to find ways of analysing BADC usage that make a clear statement about the very important issue of how much economic impact that the BADC has on the sector. The new BADC study funded by JISC and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is intending to investigate in detail exactly this question and to give a clear indication of what the value is of having a free to use and open access data resource like the BADC.

Engaging the expertise of Neil Beagrie of Charles Beagrie Ltd. and Professor John Houghton of the CSES, the project will analyse and survey indicators and perceptions of the value of digital collections held by the BADC and how those indicators and perceptions of value can be measured. The CSES and Charles Beagrie Ltd have led the field in conducting value perception and economic impact surveys for digital repositories and they have recently completed a similar exercise with the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) in the UK. The report from this work, The Economic Impact Evaluation of the Economic and Social Data Service, is now available from the Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC). Another study on the impact of the Archaeology Data Service is also underway in parallel with that for BADC.

A major element of the BADC study will be two forms of stakeholder survey. The first phase will see a selection of users and depositors from all sectors be invited to participate in in-depth interviews, and secondly an online survey will be launched to gauge the levels of use, impacts, and perceptions of value amongst the broadest possible range of BADC users.

Our economic analysis aims to include a range of approaches, starting with the most immediate and direct measures of value that are likely to represent lower bound estimates of the value of BADC data and services and moving outwards to estimates of the wider economic benefits.

We hope this project will not only have immediate benefits for the BADC, its stakeholders and user communities, but will build on previous work to investigate methodologies and good practice in the area of valuation that will be directly applicable to other repositories, in different domains, allowing them to reap the benefits of this work as they seek to analyse their own economic impact.

For further information on the project see the BADC Value and Impact study project web page.

The Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) web site has been updated today with links and details of other implementations based on the KRDS tools. Implementation added are as follows:

• The Economic Impact Evaluation of the Economic and Social Data Service
• Impact of the Archaeology Data Service
• The Value and Impact of the British Atmospheric Data Centre
• Business Models and Cost Estimation: Dryad Repository Case Study
• Infrastructure for Integration in Structural Sciences (I2S2): Extended Cost Model and Benefits Use Cases
• JISC DMI Programme: Business Models, Cost and Benefit Analyses Support Web Page
• Application of the Benefits Analysis Tools for MRC population health studies
• Research360 University of Bath

For further details see the KRDS project website.

If you have based implementations on KRDS tools we would be happy to add details to the list. Please send further  information to info@beagrie.com.

This information event may be of interest to readers of the blog:

Meeting programme

Tuesday 4th September 2012 14:00 – 17:00

Background: The Digital Economy RCUK Theme Introduction to the ITaaU Network ITaaU Events and Opportunities Design for Usable IT (USTWO). The ITaaU Network and EU FP7 and Beyond (Dr. Mike Surridge, IT Innovation) The ITaaU Network and Asia (Prof. Gerard Parr, University of Ulster) Cloud & Pervasive Computing (Rob Fraser, Microsoft UK) Summary of ITaaU events, opportunities and deadlines

More details will be published on the Network web site  shortly. There will be no registration formalities or charge for this meeting but please email info@itutility.ac.uk to let them know that if you are planning to come so they can ensure adequate refreshments. The event is being held at the Royal Society, Carlton House Terrace, London. Directions can be found online.

IT as a Utility (ITaaU) is one of the 4 sub-themes of the RCUK Digital Economy programme . The ITaaU Network purpose is to promote and enhance the community interested in this aspect of the DE programme and help co-ordinate activities in this area. IT as a Utility is about the provision of information and technology in a transparent and highly usable manner. It is closely related to Grid and Cloud Computing with its emphasis on making IT resources effortlessly and almost invisibly available the end user. Cloud paradigms for access to applications and infrastructure are now well established, and are changing the way users interact with applications, especially where the application is accessible from multiple devices and users.

For further information, see  the website (this is being updated and a new version will appear soon) and also the blog post.