DPC

Part of the DATUM for Health project; conducted by Northumbria University and funded by JISC

Flexible and timely access to information has the potential to transform professional practice and research in health studies and related disciplines, but the promise can only be delivered if we can overcome the threats of obsolescence. A decade of research and development has begun to make available the sorts of robust tools, techniques and services which our generation will need to ensure that our digital memory is accessible tomorrow. But the capacity to deliver long term access remains focussed in the hands of a small number of information specialists. This skills shortage presents a key strategic challenge to the delivery of fundamental services for medicine, health, wellbeing, and related sectors where research data is highly confidential and may need to be retained for long periods of time. Ethical, legislative and economic imperatives mean that thoughtful but rapid development in robust research data management policies and services will be required over the next decade. Research data management skills are badly needed so that new entrants into the health and medical professions are prepared for the rapidly changing requirements of the information age.

This DPC briefing day is intended to introduce key concepts of digital preservation to students and information managers working in the health and wellbeing sectors. It will provide a forum to review and debate the latest development in the preservation of digital qualitative research data in the health field and it will initiate a discussion on how the necessary skills can most effectively be developed. Based on commentary and case studies from leaders in the field, participants will be presented with emerging tools and technologies and will be encouraged to propose and debate the future for these developments. The day will include a discussion of:

• Effective management of qualitative data in health
• Emerging tools and services for long term access to research data
• Research data management: policy and practice
• Practical research data management skills for health professionals

Who should come?

• Research and taught postgraduate students in health and related disciplines
• Managers and funders of research projects in health and related disciplines
• Repository managers providing access to publications and data in health
• Tools developers and policy makers in digital preservation
• Innovators and researchers that provide digital services to the health sector
• Vendors and providers of information management services

Finalized Programme

(download programme for the day - pdf 269kb)

1030 Registration and Coffee

1100 Welcome and Introductions: Prof Julie McLeod, Northumbria University (Datum for Health Project)

1110 Digital preservation and long term access: challenges, opportunities, approaches and tools, William Kilbride, DPC

1135 Managing qualitative data, Louise Corti, UK Data Archive, University of Essex

1200 Managing qualitative data for health research: A researcher’s experiences, John Given, Researcher in narrative studies in health

1225 The challenges of digital preservation at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Victoria Cranna, London School of Hygience and Tropical Medicine

1250 Questions

1300 Lunch

1345 Data - manage it, make the most of it! Prof Charlotte Clarke, Associate Dean (Research), School of Health, Community and Education Studies, Northumbria University

1400 Strategic view of research data management for Higher Education, Dr Simon Hodson, JISC

14.25 Managing qualitative data for health research: A case study, Ruth Sanders, The Health Experiences Research Group, University of Oxford

1450 Tea and coffee

1505 The Challenges of Digital Preservation in a Changing Environment, Andrew Pitt, Pfizer

1530 Roundtable: what is to be done, why and by whom? Chair by Julie McLeod with Charlotte Clarke, Louise Corti, Simon Hodson, William Kilbride, other speakers, etc.

1600 Close

Portsmouth University joins the Coalition

The Digital Preservation Coalition is delighted to welcome the University of Portsmouth as its latest associate member. 

'The Future Proof Computing Group at the University of Portsmouth has a track record of research and development of digital preservation through initiatives like the KEEP project (Keeping Emulation Environments Portable)' explained Dr David Anderson. 'We're about to start a new project, POCOS, funded by the JISC, on the preservation of complex objects, and have interests in topics like the sustainability of computer games technology, the history of computing, emulation, virtualization and data warehousing.

Emerging tools and services for digital preservation are typically built around the need to preserve texts, documents, images and data sets.  Audio and video – broadly defined as time-based-media - have received less attention within the library and archive communities, partly because they have historically been seen as distinct, partly because they present new technical challenges, and partly because they have hitherto represented only a small proportion of the collections which memory institutions and research archives collect.  However, the simplicity with which digital video and audio can be captured and the ease and popularity of online distribution means that they are now ubiquitous, creating new concern for long term access.  As more and more of our cultural and scientific legacy is being created in digital audio-visual formats, so those managing long term access to data need to understand the challenges and opportunities which these formats bring.  New skills and new techniques will be required to ensure our digital audio and video memory is accessible tomorrow.

This DPC briefing day will provide a forum for members to review and debate the latest development in the preservation of digital sound and vision. Based on commentary and case studies from leaders in the field, participants will be presented with emerging tools and technologies and will be encouraged to propose and debate new directions for research.  The day will include a discussion of key

• Preservation of digital audio formats and collections
• Preservation of digital video formats and collections
• Creation, documentation and retrieval of digital sound and video
• Emerging tools and policies for preservation

Who should come?

This day will be of interest to:

• Collections manager, librarians, archivists and conservators with responsibility for audio and video collections
• Managers and funders of digitization projects
• Repository managers providing access to data linked to publications
• Tools developers and policy makers in digital preservation
• Innovators and researchers in digital sound and video
• Innovators and researchers in computing science
• Vendors and providers of collections management services

Draft Programme Outline

1030       Registration and Coffee

1100       Welcome and introductions (William Kilbride, DPC)

1110       Defining the 'Value Proposition' for Audio-Visual Preservation: The Nature of the Problem, Nicky Whitsed, Open University

1130       Collecting, conserving and managing sound archives Richard Ranft, British Library Sound Archive

1150       Creators and consumers: digital sound and vision as research outputs, Stephen Gray, JISC Digital Media

1210       Challenges and solutions in broadcast archives, John Zubrycki, BBC

1230       Discussion and questions

1300       Lunch

1340       Presto Centre and emerging tools in preservation of audio-visual collections, Richard Wright, BBC

1400       Access to Video Assets Project, The Open University: Outcomes and Lessons Learnt, Sue Allcock, James Alexander, Open University

1420       Emerging tools for digital sound, Mark Plumbley and Simon Dixon, Queen Mary University of London.

1440       Coffee

1500       Discussion: what is to be done, why and by whom?

By 1600 Close

Download programme and introduction

The National Library of Ireland is the latest organisation to join the Digital Preservation Coalition, helping the Library to address the challenges and opportunities associated with long term management of digital collections.

The DPC has today published a response to the second phase of consultation on electronic legal deposit which was submitted to the Department for Culture Media and Sport at the end of December. It notes the essential relationship between preservation and access.

DPC Response to Second Consultation on Legal Deposit (December 2010)

The DPC has responded to the second phase of consultation on Electronic Legal Deposit noting the essential relationship between preservation and access. We note and welcome the proposal that extend legal deposit to include charged content as well as content to which access is restricted. This will create the conditions where a more rounded and more valuable national archive can be created.

Experience in digital preservation shows that normalization and adherence to standards in the creation of digital resources are advantageous to long term access. Therefore we have some questions pertaining to the practicality of provisions regarding deposit of materials, in particular those regulations that leave the medium and quality of electronic deposits at the discretion of publishers, and those regulations that pertain to adapting content for preservation. If poorly implemented, these provisions could have the inadvertent result of making preservation intractable or excessively complicated.

We recognise that recommendations from the DPC are best focussed on those topics where we can offer specialist commentary. Therefore it is not our intention to provide a detailed scrutiny of each element of these regulations. However it is our view that preservation is only sensible within the context of access, and that preservation should be configured around the impact that comes with access. Therefore we have commented on a small number of access issues that we believe have a bearing on the case for preservation.

In January 2010 the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) consulted on draft regulations for the legal deposit of ‘free of charge’ electronic publications – the ‘free web’.  This consultation was intended to be the first part of a two part process and the DPC responded arguing inter alia that the second phase of proposals be presented without delay as arguably the ‘paid web’ includes material of lasting value and that until regulations were introduced this element of our collected digital memory would be at risk. 

 In September DCMS published a paper for the second phase of the consultation process.  The regulations discussed this time apply to a much broader range of material including publications for which there is a charge, publications which are subject to access restrictions and material compiled by queries from databases.  It excludes sound and film recordings and unpublished material.

Details of this consultation are available online at: http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/Cons-non-print-legal-deposit-2011.pdf 

The draft regulations to which the consultation applies are online at: http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/draft-regulations-legaldeposit-nonprint-publications.pdf

Full text of the DPC response is available here. [pdf, 340KB]

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) is delighted to welcome the UK LOCKSS Alliance as its latest associate member.

The UK LOCKSS Alliance is a co-operative organization which ensures continuing access to scholarly work over the long term.  Its focus is on ensuring preservation and continuing access to electronic journals, but has interests and current research work on the preservation of all library collections, thus making it a natural fit within the DPC family.

Appropriate and timely examination of the digital preservation plans of digitization projects can have a lasting impact.  Projects may not know or understand the risks they run. Simple assessment can help them identify and address these risks sooner rather than later.