Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 14.1
Preservation analysis workflow
The methodology seeks to incorporate a number of analysis techniques, tools and
methods into an overall process capable of producing an actionable preservation
plan for scientific data archives. Figure
14.1
illustrates the stages of this method-
ology. In the rest of this section we discuss the stages in detail, illustrated with
examples of work with the scientific archives.
14.1 Preliminary Investigation of Data Holdings
The first step is to undertake a preliminary investigation of the data holdings of
the target archive. The CASPAR project developed a questionnaire [
175
] containing
key questions which allowed what we might call the preservation analyst to initiate
discussion with the archive. It critically allows the analyst to:
•
understand the information extracted by users from data
•
identify Preservation Description and Representation information
•
develop a clearer understanding of the data and what is necessary for is effective
re-use
•
understand relationships between data files and what constitutes a digital object
within the archive
While it is appreciated that this questionnaire is not an exhaustive list of questions
which one may need to ask about a preservation target, it still provides sufficient
