Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
of Protocols may be applied by that archive, allowing the archive administrators to
capture information about format migration or encryption.
In addition to capturing all necessary evidence, the tool can provide the following
benefits to a project:
•
basing the tool on the Authenticity Model will provide a standard process and
terminology which can be shared and understood between communities
•
defining the protocols helps to document the preservation actions and the key
events taking place in the preservation system
•
providing a customisable and flexible mechanism for project preservation staff to
formally define what are the important characteristics about their own data that
need capturing
13.7.3 Tool Requirements
Determined from examining user requirements for scientific case studies, the fol-
lowing requirements were gathered for the CASPAR Authenticity management
tool:
•
The tool will focus on capturing information in textual form, making the capture
process as fast and user friendly as possible
•
The tool must be customisable, Authenticity Protocols and Steps will be encoded
in XML conforming to an XML schema and imported into the tool, these will
capture non generic, project specific information
•
Some Authenticity Steps and the information they capture will be generic and
therefore standard to the tool
•
Some information capture would be automated through the use of pre-existing
archival software or from new plug-in tools, for instance a plug-in may read file
format descriptions to pull relevant information from file headers
•
An Authenticity Execution Report must be compiled from the results of informa-
tion capture, this should be exportable in various formats such as RDF or XML
for inclusion into an AIP
•
The tool must provide a mechanism for local information storage either using a
database or file system in order to allow a user to save their current progress and
come back to the information capture at a later time.
•
The tool may make suggestions as to what information should be captured by an
Authenticity Protocol
•
The tool must collect provenance information about who is doing the capture, for
example name, organisation, time and date
•
The tool will digitally sign the captured evidence through a digest to provide an
indication whether the information has been modified or corrupted.
•
The tool will provide a visually indication of what information has been captured,
what is missing and provide metrics informing to what degree the capture process
has met the requirements outlined in the protocol document.
