An update on the KeepIt projectfor the JISC exemplars meeting

Steve Hitchcock and Dave TarrantECS, University of Southampton

London, 14 June 2010

Digital repositories diversifying: institution-wide outputs

Science Teaching

Research Arts

KeepIt exemplar preservation repositories

KeepIt has two strands

• People: in our case, repository managers• Technology: principally, preservation tools

Module 1, Organisational issues, audit, selection and appraisalSchool of ECS, University of Southampton, 19 January 2010

Module 3, Primer on preservation workflow, formats and characterisationWestminster-Kingsway College, London, 2 March 2010

Module 2, institutional and lifecycle preservation costs School of ECS, University of Southampton, 5 February 2010

Module 4, Putting storage, format management and preservation planning in the repository

University of Southampton, 18-19 March 2010

Module 5, Trust, of the repository, of the tools and services it chooses University of Northampton, 30 March 2010

Evaluation: course structure

“Structure and development through the course was excellent. Presentations and practicals gave good introductions to all the tools. Applicability sometimes focussed too much on IRs and research data”

Course evaluation summary

“Many of these tools are, of necessity, complex in scope and time consuming. The challenge is to understand which one to use in which situation and

to what depth to engage with it.”

Evaluation module 4

“This part of the course made me appreciate how big the area of preservation is and also the amount of research undertaken in this area.”

Objectives: EPrints preservation tools

All exemplars want to upgrade to EPrints version 3.2 and apply the preservation tools. The speed with which this can happen depends on local IT support and repository service providers.

Objectives: type-specific exemplars

The two type-specific repositories want to specialise and optimise the tools

• Edshare: to identify a typical format profile for teaching and learning repositories and assess the preservation implications• eCrystals: to add the two main formats used in the field to the tools, and to seek to coordinate this with the organisations who maintain the formats

Objectives: institution-wide exemplars

No two exemplars are the same, and the institution-wide exemplars are taking different approaches:

• NECTAR (Northampton) is using DAF to estimate, anticipate and scope its content requirements in coming years• UAL Research Online is using DRAMBORA’s risk-based approach to assess its preservation requirements

Preservation costs

• eCrystals contributed to KRDS2 survey

• All exemplars and trainees have been invited to evaluate LIFE3 beta

Lessons from the KeepIt course• The digital preservation community has produced an

array of tools covering most requirements.• Repository managers have responded positively to

practice with these tools.• Repository managers need to act to shape their

repositories for the next phase of development: expansion; diversification or focus.

• These tools support this process, as well as the technical management of digital preservation.

• Still need to reduce complexity and make tools simpler for non-specialists.

• One approach is to integrate tools into familiar interfaces, such as repositories.

• This is a great story for digital preservation

Preservation Repository Exemplars

• How do we exemplify? • What does it mean to exemplify?The exemplar repositories have the opportunity to present to, and influence, their peers, in their communities, in their fields. Other repositories want to hear from their peers what has been achieved, and they are more likely to emulate that experience than they are to emulate experts.