Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Step in Lifecycle
Function
Create the Information Object - by adding Representation Information to the particular
digital data object.
1. Representation Information -
adequate for the Designated
Community - must be created.
COMPONENT
: Representation
Information Toolbox (see
Sect. 17.12
)
Guides the user to a number of applications to
create adequate Representation Information
(RepInfo) - using existing RepInfo from
registries where available.
Representation Information includes Syntactical
and Semantic descriptions and also associated
software and standards.
Major components of this toolbox are:
2. Capture Data Management
information
COMPONENT
: Data Access Manager
(see
Sect. 17.7
)
This includes Access Control information such
as Access Control Lists. More detailed DRM
may also be needed.
3. Capture Digital Rights associated
with the data object
COMPONENT
:DRM(see
Sect. 17.8
)
Digital Rights Management can be an essential
part of digital preservation, especially for the
short- to medium-term portion of archival
storage.
4. Capture Higher level Semantics
COMPONENT
: RepInfo Gap Manager
(see
Sect. 17.4
)
The capture of higher-level, more subtle
semantics (knowledge) is closely related to that
which the burgeoning Semantic Web research
industry is working on. What is needed here is to
ensure that what is captured can survive over the
long term and over many changes in “knowledge
technologies”. The RepInfo Gap Manager is
applicable at all levels of description, but the
most challenging is the more complex,
higher-level, semantics.
5. Create Virtualisation description
COMPONENT
: Virtualisation
Assistant (see
Sect. 17.3
)
Virtualisation consists of identifying
abstractions - probably many different types of
abstractions - to encapsulate important features
of the Information Object.
This is essentially OAIS Representation
Information, but we wish to stress the
Virtualisation aspects because of the need to
facilitate automated processing.
In the taxonomy of Information Objects, it is useful to distinguish between Simple and
Complex Objects, as well as discipline-specific virtualisation, hence the need for:
6. Describe discipline specific object
characteristics
COMPONENT
: Discipline specific
Object Virtualiser Manager (see
Sect. 17.3
)
In order to limit the multiplicity of types of
object, it seems reasonable to normalise
characteristics, separating those that are
discipline specific from those that are common
to all objects.
