Technology Watch Editorial Board

The DPC established a Technology Watch Report series in 2002 and since then it has been one of the Coalition’s most enduring contributions to the wider digital preservation community. They exist to provide authoritative support and foresight to those engaged with digital preservation or having to tackle digital preservation problems for the first time. These publications support members work forces, they identify disseminate and discuss best practice and they lower the barriers to participation in digital preservation.

Each ‘Technology Watch Report’ analyses a particular topic pertinent to digital preservation and presents an evaluation of workable solutions, a review of potential or emerging solutions and posits solutions that might be appropriate for different contexts. The reports are written by leaders-in-the-field and are peer-reviewed prior to publication. Each report includes a ‘key message’ précis of not more than 50 words and explicitly identifies its target audience.

For more details of the reports see: http://www.dpconline.org/advice/technology-watch-reports

Terms of Reference

The Editorial Board was brought into existence in 2011 to support a new generation of reports which had been commissioned from an external series editor. The Editorial Board provides strategic direction to the series and provides a strategic link between the series and the DPC membership and the DPC Board. It exists to:

• advise on wider publishing developments and related publication plans of DPC members.
• facilitate the quality of individual reports by helping to nominate peer reviewers and authors as appropriate.
• propose and discuss shared challenges which could become topics for future technology watch reports to discuss how these challenges have emerged and their operational impact.
• ensure consistency of approach and style across the series through the use of generic templates and cover design.
• establish and monitor explicit quality and impact measures for reports.
• discuss frequency of future publication and monitor the overall production process by Charles Beagrie Ltd and the DPC.

The Editorial Board is not be responsible for the delivery of reports nor will it be expected to review individual author briefs, author contracts or draft versions of reports or reviewer comments. This does not prevent members from acting as authors or peer reviewers from time to time.

Full draft terms of reference are available online.  They will remain in draft until approved by the DPC board (expected September 2011).

Members

The Board Currently consists of:

• Neil Beagrie (Series Editor)
• Janet Delve (University of Portsmouth)
• Sarah Higgins (Archives and Records Association)
• Tim Keefe (Trinity College Dublin Library)
• William Kilbride (DPC - Chair)
• Andrew McHugh (DCC)
• Dave Thompson (Wellcome Library)

Working Groups and Task Forces

From time to time the DPC brings small groups together to work on specific issues shared between members, and the DPC is frequently invited to contribute to working parties organised by other groups. Details of these working parties and task forces are published here.

Current

• Web Archiving and Preservation Task Force (DPC-WAPTF)
• Public Records Act (Scotland) Implementation Group
• Capacity Enhancement and Peer Review Task Force (DPC-CERT)
• Editorial Board for the DPC Technology Watch Reports
• Career Development and Training Task Force (DPC-CDT)
• Bedern Group - Digital Preservation and the Historic Environment (Bedern Group) (login required)

Completed groups

• Mind the Gap / UK Needs Assessment
• Links to exernal groups which have consulted DPC

Web Archiving and Preservation Task Force

The DPC Web Archiving and Preservation Task Force will allow members to share best practice to support their local priorities. It will identify, examine and review current policy in web archiving and preservation. It will provide a mutually supportive environment for continued policy development for members and a mechanism through which non-members can engage with web archiving policy. In this way the Task Force will help to ensure that our generation can carve an appropriate legacy from the complexity and volatility of the web.

Terms of Reference

It is recognised that the rapid adoption of new technologies, the relative novelty of the problem and number of stakeholders involved inhibit the development of complementary policies for long term access to the Web.  Without such a policy framework there is a risk that limited resources are not targeted appropriately and that historically ‘significant’ websites are lost.

The Task Force will provide a forum in which members can share their experience, establish common goals and inform their own policy development.  Members will present organisational responses to emerging strategic challenges. Through discussion and negotiation they will support collaborative effort towards improved management of web archives.   Focussed, energetic and informed, the Task Force will not develop policy but will provide the framework in which members can refine and develop their own approaches to web archiving and preservation through shared experience and knowledge transfer.  

The Task Force will not take responsibility for service provision, will not attempt to create national policy and will not undertake tools or standards development, except to lobby for these as necessary. Members will be asked to articulate their responses to a number of shared challenges to discuss how these responses have emerged and their operational impact. In this way it will be possible to identify more clearly gaps in provision, technology and policy.  Areas of strength and weakness at an institutional and national level can be spotted – deploying our shared resources more strategically and constructing a more effective case for additional resources as required. Any recommendations that the Task Force makes are intended to inform policies and strategies with institutions.

Read the Full Terms of Reference and Roadmap for 2010-11 [425 kb pdf].

Membership

The task force is open to all associates and full members of the DPC. 

• BBC
• British Library
• Digital Curation Centre
• JISC
• National Archives
• National Archives of Scotland
• National Library of Scotland
• National Library of Wales
• Parliamentary Archives
• Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
• Tate
• Trinity College Library, Dublin
• University of London Computing Centre
• Wellcome Library

Feb 2012: Quality Assurance for Web Archiving and Preservation

In preparation of a meeting to discuss collecting policies in the field of web archiving, participants are asked to help draft a survey of the current quality assurance practices of web archiving in the UK and Ireland.  This will be published in due course as part of an analytical review of the current state of the art.  A survey form and agenda for the meeting are available for members; a compiled survey with the first responses is also available (login required).

May 2010: Collecting Policies for Web Archiving and Preservation

In preparation of a meeting to discuss collecting policies in the field of web archiving, participants helped draft an extensive and informative survey of the current state of web archiving in the UK.  This will be published in due course as part of an analytical review of the current state of the art.  A draft of the survey  and the agenda for the meeting are available for inspection by members (login required).

Public Records Act Scotland Implementation Group

The Public Records Act Scotland (2011) creates new powers for the Keeper of the Records of Scotland to advise a range of public agencies and their contracting partners about their record keeping.  The act specifically requires the Keeper to develop a 'Model Records Management Plan' and guidance as to how these are implemented.  The Act was passed by parliament in April 2011, received royal assent in May and is due to be implemented in full from Januaret 22013.

DPC has been asked to assist the Keeper in developing this guidance so an informal group has been established from within the DPC membership to help commenting and advising about drafts of the advice and the Model Records Management Plan.  A report of a preliminary meeting is available (PDF 251KB, Login Required).  Further documents and discusisons will be linked from this page.

• DPC submission to initial Consultation on the Public Records Scotland Bill, (PDF July 2010)
• Parliamentary Debate on the Public Records (Scotland) Bill, Edinburgh 10th February 2011 (via Democracy Live)
• Parliamentary Debate on the Public Records (Scotland) Bill , Edinburgh 10th February 2011
• The Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011 as passed 20th April 2011
• Report of the preliminary meeting of the Stakeholder Forum, Edinburgh 30th June 2011 (PDF 251 KB, Login Required)
• Report of the second meeting of rhe Stakeholder Forum, Glasgow 27th October 2011 (PDF 216 KB, Login Required)

Membership

This informal group is open to all associates and full members of the DPC, except the National Records of Scotland who have declared an interest and therefore would rather not participate to ensure the independence of any recommendations the DPC may make.

Capacity Enhancement and Peer Review Task Force

The DPC is in the process of establishing a peer review group which will perform four basic and related functions to support digital preservation among its members:

• to provide peer review and reporting on digital preservation facilities and services being offered by members
• to provide an entry level into formal evaluation and certification for digital repositories being operated by DPC members
• to provide formal means for staff exchange between members to support mutual improvement
• to provide basic quality improvement planning for digital repositories being operated by DPC members

This group was originated by the DPC board which initially called for a draft terms of reference be presented.  These terms of reference were discussed at the Board and subsequently at the Planning Day in January 2011 and will be further revised at a preliminary meeting of the task force.

Updated terms of reference and initiation document

Draft and updated terms of reference have been prepared in advance of the initiation meeting in September 2011. 

Membership

This informal group is open to all associates and full members of the DPC. A call for members is currently open and dates for the first meeting will be September 2011.  Please contact the DPC office if you wish to join this group.

Career Development and Training Task Force

The DPC strategic plan includes a high level objective to support members’ workforces through the provision of specialised training. Recognising the costs of provision and the very great range of expertise required, in 2009 the DPC established a ‘Leadership Programme’ which offered scholarships in order that members could send staff to attend training courses offered by third party providers. The DPC is in the process of establishing a group to examine how best to allocate funds from its Leadership Programme,  In order to make this process more transparent, it is therefore necessary to provide transparent mechanisms to assess whether or not a course is likely to deliver benefits to DPC members in line with the DPC's vision and values.

The DPC Career Development and Training Task Force will establish and monitor criteria through which training providers can access support from the DPC Leadership Programme. It will ensure that grants are awarded to credible and viable training courses of demonstrable quality that will help deliver the DPC’s strategic objective. It will identify, assess, monitor and promote short courses that provide informed and credible training in digital preservation and cognate fields.
In this way the Task Force will help to ensure that our members’ workforces are better supported with higher quality and ever more relevant training.

Draft terms of reference

Draft terms of reference have been prepared and approved by the DPC Board in advance of the initiation meeting scheduled for the last quarter of 2011. 

Membership

This informal group is open to all associates and full members of the DPC. A call for members will be announced in September 2011.  Please contact the DPC office if you wish to join this group.

Other Digital Preservation Working Groups and Task Forces

The links here are to advisory groups, working groups, and task forces charged with a range of objectives but all broadly concerned with digital preservation issues. They all have involvement from DPC members.

Copyright and Licensing for Digital Preservation Project Advisory Group
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/CLDP/index.htm
An eighteen month AHRB funded research project managed by the University of Loughborough. The project sought to investigate whether copyright legislation and licensed access to digital content threaten the ability of libraries to provide long-term access to that content and to suggest ways in which the problems can be overcome.

Experts Working Group on the Preservation of Digital Memory
http://www.erpanet.org/events/workgroup/index.php
The experts workgroup was established following the International Conference in Firenze on 16/17 October 2003 in order to check the state-of-art and plan development as needed to implement the resolution principles. The workgroup is headed by the Erpanet and Minerva projects, under the chairing of the European Commission.

PADI International Advisory Group
http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/about.html#IAG
The Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI) web site is a subject gateway to digital preservation resources. It has an associated discussion list padiforum-l for the exchange of news and ideas about digital preservation issues. The National Library of Australia, who host the PADI site, have a MOU with the DPC, and one of the outputs of this is the quarterly current awareness bulletin What's New In Digital Preservation? Available both from the DPC website and PADI. There is also DPC representation on PADI's International Advisory Group, established to provide advice and guidance for the PADI initiative.

PREMIS (PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies)
http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/past/orprojects/pmwg/default.htm
This working group continues the effort of the OCLC/RLG Working group which developed the preservation metadata framework, using the metadata framework as a conceptual foundation and starting point for its work. The focus of the PREMIS group will be on the practical aspects of implementing preservation metadata in digital preservation systems.

RLG/NARA Task Force on Digital Repository Certification
http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/past/rlg/repositorycert.htm
The purpose of the TF is to produce certification requirements for establishing and selecting reliable digital information repositories. This effort is part of ongoing work with the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) model, and RLG and NARA intend the results to go into the standardization process through the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) Archiving Series. A draft of the task force's certification report is now available from the RLG Digital Repository Certification page.