Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
All the above may be regarded as plans which guide a curator in collecting appro-
priate evidence. The next group of diagrams show what should happen when the
evidence is collected and made available so that people can evaluate it.
13.3.3 Authenticity Protocol Execution (APE)
APs are executed by an actor on objects of the type or types for which they were
designed, in the context of Authenticity Execution Sessions. The execution of an
AP is modelled as an Authenticity Protocol Execution (APE for short). An APE
is related to an AP via the
IsExecutionOf
association and consists of a number of
execution steps (Authenticity Step Executions, ASEs for short). Every ASE, in turn,
is related to the AS via an association analogous to the
IsExecutionOf
association,
and contains the information about the execution, including:
•
the actor who carried out the execution
•
the information which was used
•
the time, place, and context of execution
•
possibly the outcome of the execution.
Not every step necessarily implies a decision ( in other words the decision is null),
some steps simply imply collecting information related to a specific aspect of the
object, e.g. title, extent, dates, and we are only interested into declaring the step
has been done, without any form of evaluation. From a modelling point of view,
we could classify steps as decisional (and the outcome is the decision) and non-
decisional ones (having a different kind of outcome as an attribute, e.g. “step done”
or “step not completed for such and such reason”).
Different types of ASEs have different structures and the outcomes of the exe-
cutions must be documented to gather information related to specific aspects of the
object, e.g. title, extent, dates and transformations. An Authenticity Protocol Report
simply documents that the step has been done and collects all the values associated
with the data elements analysed in a specific ASE.
The Authenticity Protocol Report provides a complete set of information upon
which an entitled actor (human or application) can build a judgment regarding the
authenticity of the resource, bearing in mind issues of both its identity and integrity.
13.3.4 Authenticity Step Execution (ASE) and Authenticity
Protocol History
Different types of ASEs will have different structures. Additionally, an ASE may
contain a dissemination action. Moreover, we are dealing with preservation and so
we also want our model to be able to cope with the evolution of both APs and their
executions over time. The evolution of an AP may concern the addition, removal or
modification of one of the steps making up the AP. In any case, both the old and the
new step should be retained, for documentation purposes. When an AS of an AP is
changed, all the executions of the AP which include an ASE related to the changed
