Supporting further and higher education

Digital Preservation & Institutional Repositories

Helen Hockx-Yu

Programme Manager, JISC

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What is an institutional repository

• Institutional repositories are digital collections that capture and preserve the intellectual output of a single or multi-university community (Crow, 2002, p. 4)

• An insitutional repository stores and makes accessible the educational, research and associated assets of an institution

• Content is not limited to e-prints. Can also include research data, learning resources, image collections and many other different types of content

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Repositories are important• As an increasingly recognised means to capture, store and

access the institutional knowledge base and intellectual assets which are growingly in digital form

• Supports the open access goal of transforming scholarly communication and is becoming a major component in the evolving structure of scholarly communication

• Enhances the visibility of and improves access to research outputs; encourages data re-use and collaboration

• Potentials of repositories are being recognised by funding bodies worldwide and there is an international trend of funding bodies requiring publication of research results through repositories (RCUK, Wellcome Trust, The US National Institute of Health)

• A leading role by JISC in piloting and supporting the development and implementation of institutional repositories to enable the dissemination and sharing of research outputs

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The need for preservation

• “An institutional repository needs to be a service with continuity behind it …….Institutions need to recognize that they are making commitments for the long term.” (Cliff Lynch, RLG DigiNews, 2004 )

• Digital information is more vulnerable to potential loss due to dependence on technology – preservation actions required within very short timeframe

• Digital information is easily altered - measures required to ensure its continued integrity & authenticity

• Guarantee of long-term preservation gives authors more incentives to deposit content and enhances a repository’s trustworthiness

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Understanding the problem

Effective Preservation means:

• Data is maintained in the repository without being damaged, lost or maliciously altered

• Data can be found, extracted and served to a user

• Data can be interpreted and understood by the user

• The above can be achieved in the long term

(Paul Wheatley, Institutional Repositories in the context of Digital Preservation, 2004)

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The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Functional Model

• Six high-level functional components within the OAIS

environment

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The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Functional Model

• Ingest: processes for accepting information submitted by Producers and preparing it for inclusion in the archival store

• Archival Storage: long-term storage and maintenance of digital materials

• Data Management: maintaining descriptive metadata to support search and retrieval of the archived content, and administration of internal operations.

• Preservation Planning: designing preservation strategy against evolving user and technology environment

• Access: processes and services that locate, request, and receive delivery of the content within the archival store.

• Administration: day-to-day operations & coordination of other 5 high-level OAIS services

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More about OAIS

• The OAIS Reference Model defines the basic functional components of a system dedicated to the long-term preservation of digital information but does not specify implementation – a conceptual framework with common terminology

• Not all the functions need to be undertaken by a specific repository; some functions can be fulfilled by external service providers (e.g. remote storage, preservation planning)

• Designated Community is an important concept - the subset of Consumers expected to independently understand the archived information in the form in which it is preserved and made available by the OAIS

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Issues and challenges

Organisational & managerial

• Digital preservation does not yet form an integral part of the institution’s corporate / information strategy – lack of organisational infrastructure and skilled staff

• Core funding for institutions does not grow in line with information growth; many institutional repositories rely on short-term project funding

• Costs for preservation are in general difficult to calculate and are poorly understood (difficult to segregate costs for preservation from costs for access)

• Organisational model – relationship between institutional repositories and external preservation agencies

• What to preserve? Not a choice between all or nothing.

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Issues and challenges

Technical

• Focus of repository activities to date is not on preservation; little experience nor commonly agreed best practice

• Standards have just started to emerge

• Little preservation metadata is currently being collected for content within the institutional repositories – lack of technical knowledge

• Need for new shared services and information infrastructure (e.g. persistent identifiers service & registries of file format, Representation Information)

• Need for more automation and tools (e.g. automatic metadata generation/extraction tool; automatic file format recognition and validation)

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The role of JISC

• As a central resource helping to promote, support and develop the management & preservation of institutional and community digital resources

• As a partner for the Research Councils and other national & international bodies, in developing services for the sector or cross-sectoral initiatives

• As an institution and role model ensuring:– good practice is followed for resources created

or managed by JISC– appropriate grant conditions for JISC-funded

creation of digital resources

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The JISC continuing access and digital preservation strategy 2002-5

• Long-term preservation and access to scholarly and education material is an important strategic area for JISC

• Digital preservation and records management activities guided by the JISC Continuing Access and Digital Preservation Strategy 2002-2005 and its implementation plan

• Vision– Mix of national, perhaps regional and institutional

services– Importance of records / information management -

lifecycle approach– Many stakeholders and players not solely a JISC issue –

coordination and partnership with others

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Key initiatives

• Feasibility, scoping studies & implementation of recommended actions– e-journals, web resources, e-prints, e-science data,

e-learning objects and materials, and information on file formats/software documentation

• Community calls– Circular 9/02: Supporting Institutional Records

Management – Circular 4/04: Supporting Institutional Digital

Preservation and Asset Management– In planning: UK LOCKSS Pilot Programme

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Key initiatives

• National services and initiatives– Arts and Humanities Data Service– UK Data Archive – Digital Curation Centre

• Partnership activities– A member of the Digital Preservation Coalition

(DPC) – Co-funding of the Digital Curation Centre with the

UK e-Science Core Programme– JISC as a founder member of the UK Web Archiving

Consortium– JISC / BL partnership – preservation being an

important area of cooperation and collaborative projects

– A member of the European Taskforce for Permanent Access to Records of Science

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Supporting institutional digital preservation and asset management

• 11 projects vary in length from 6 to 24 months, around 3 themes:– Institutional management support and collaboration– Digital preservation assessment tools– Institutional repository infrastructure development

• Raise awareness and gain hands-on experience of digital preservation issues within institutions

• Encourage a process of integrating digital preservation into institutional strategies and operations

• Provide practical guidance and help to develop the required skill sets for institutions to develop their own programmes in digital preservation

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Preserv and SherpaDP

• PReservation Eprint SERVices (Preserv)– Implements an ingest service based on the OAIS

reference model for institutional archives built using Eprints software

– Adapts Eprints software to allow collection and dissemination of preservation metadata

– Links to the PRONOM file format registry (developed by TNA) for identification and verification of file formats

• Sherpa Digital Preservation (SherpaDP) – Piloting a shared preservation infrastructure for

institutional repositories based on the OAIS Reference Model

– Disaggregate and share OAIS functions among AHDS and institutional repositories; AHDS acting as the provider of the preservation services

– Removes the need for individual repositories to develop own preservation service

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UK LOCKSS pilot programme (in planning)

• Stands for Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe • A Stanford-based system that allows

academic libraries to provide continuing access to licensed e-journals

• LOCKSS software allows institutions to locally collect, store, preserve, and archive authorised content

• Fully functional for e-journal archiving• Requires very little on-going resources to run • Does not undermine publishers’ access

control systems and has the acceptance of many prominent academic publishers on the licensing and legal front

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UK LOCKSS pilot programme (in planning)

• A two-year programme to raise awareness of LOCKSS in the library community and to build up a self-sustaining base of LOCKSS users who will collectively preserve a major proportion of the e-journals in common use in the JISC community.

• Provide the help and support required during the initial set-up process, including: – Pre-paid and pre-configured LOCKSS hardware – A LOCKSS Technical Support Service for first line

technical support, development of publisher specific plug-ins and training and awareness raising events

– Publisher negotiation & legal appraisal of the archiving clauses in the JISC Model licence

– A collective LOCKSS Alliance membership for the UK academia

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Conclusions

• Substantial progress by JISC to date • Information growth trends are global issues

and are/will be common to all • Pressures on information providers for digital

preservation and continued access will continue to intensify over time

• Gaps in existing information infrastructure – greater automation, services, tools and collaboration

• Institutional repositories also provide new opportunities for digital preservation

• Future – digital preservation fully integrated into life-cycle of information management; not a separate activity