Planning Day 2012 - Assurance and Practice

Bedern Hall York 18/05/2012

The DPC is delighted to invite members to our annual Planning Day at Bedern Hall in York on Friday 18th May 2012. The Planning Day is an informal but informative opportunity for all of the members of the Coalition, as well as our  partners overseas to contribute to the medium term work of the Coalition, and it enables useful networking between them. This planning day has the theme 'Assurance and Practice'. 

The 2011 Planning Day made a specific recommendation that the DPC should seek to enhance the capacity of our members' digital preservation facilities by facilitiating mutually supportive peer-review.  This could provide an independent but low-maintenance form of validation for staff who may work in isolation, and who would be sceptical or un-prepared for emerging but immature processes of certification.  This proposal was examined further by a small working party in September 2011 which discussed the benefits and risks that could accrue. The group proposed that establishing mutually-supportive relationships between members were a necessary pre-cursor to peer review, and that not all members would welcome, were ready or would benefit from peer-review.  Emerging standards of certification were noted but it was not clear whether they were credible, whether they offered a desirable outcome for members, and that even if they did it was noted that the standards were neither sufficiently mature nor was there sufficient capacity or desire to creat a certification service in digital preservation yet.  Instead, a form of peer-support could form the basis of peer-review which would in turn be useful preparation to certification in due course for those that chose this option.

These aspirations for the DPC to provide help in 'assurance and practice' were incorporated as a strategic objective in the DPC Strategic Plan 2012-15, without specifying the mechanisms or processes that would deliver them.  Therefore, the purpose of this planning day is to bring the whole DPC together to review and agree a set of proposals on how best to provide assurance - and ongoing improvement - in digital preservation practice for members.

• Full members (ie board directors and their guests are invited to meet at 1800 on the evening of 17th May 2012 at the Grange Hotel (1 Clifton, York YO30 6AA) where dinner, bed and breakfast will be provided. NB this event is now closed and all hotel rooms have been allocated.
• Associates and 'Allied Organisations' are invited to nominate one representative each, assembling at Bedern Hall (Bartle Garth, York YO1 7AL) at 1030 on 18th May. 
• Personal Members are invited also to assemble Bedern Hall (Bartle Garth, York YO1 7AL) at 1030 on 18th May. 

Lunch and refreshments will be provided and the meeting will close by 1530.

Please register by 11th May 2012.

This event is now closed