Preservation and Stewardship Old

From Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)
Welcome to the Preservation and Stewardship Cluster

The objective of the new Preservation and Stewardship Cluster is to support the long-term preservation of Earth system science data and information. This Cluster provides a forum for ESIP members to collaborate on data preservation issues.

The Preservation and Stewardship cluster has regular telecons on the second Wednesday of every month at 3 PM EST

Telephone: 877-326-0011 Meeting #: *4917475*

Cluster Chair: Ruth Duerr, NSIDC rduerr@nsidc.org

To join the e-mail list for this cluster, visit | esip-preserve and submit a request to join.

Meeting Summaries and Preparation

Next Telecon

Wednesday November 10, 2010, 1 pm MST (3 pm EST)

Telephone: 877-326-0011

Meeting #: *4917475*


Notes from previous telecons

Data Management Workshop

Plans for a Data Management Workshop at fall 2010 AGU

Data Identifiers Testbed

Identifiers Testbed Activities

Data Stewardship Principles

Data Stewardship Principles

Data Citation Guidelines

Standards that Support Preservation

  • The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) is an international standard for describing data from the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. Expressed in XML, the DDI metadata specification supports the entire research data life cycle. DDI metadata accompanies and enables data conceptualization, collection, processing, distribution, discovery, analysis, repurposing, and archiving (http://ddi.icpsr.umich.edu/what)

Agency Strategies and Policies that Support Preservation

NASA

Procedural Requirements (NPR) 1441.1D: NASA Records Retention Schedules (1/31/08) [1]

This document covers all types of records managed by NASA. In Chapter 8 (Program Management Records), sections 101-113 (PROGRAM AND PROJECT RECORDS) are of particular interest. Quoted from the document:

"What items 101-113 cover. These items designate appropriate retention of NASA program and project records produced through compliance with NPR 7120.5 or other authorized project management practices. It provides for permanent retention of substantive and historically significant records, and temporary retention of other records until the Agency no longer needs them. The terms "program" and "project" are defined in the current versions of NPD 7120.4 and NPR 7120.5. This schedule applies to all activities performed as part of programs/projects whether designated "tasks," "work packages," or other terminology."

USGS

National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program[2]

NOAA

Plan for the Scientific Data Stewardship Program [3]

Interagency Working Group on Digital Data

IWGDD represents 23 agencies including: NSF, NASA, DOE, USDA, HHS, Office of Science & Technology Policy. Established by the National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Science in 2006, its mission is to: - Develop and promote implementation of strategic plan for the federal government to cultivate an open, interoperable framework; and - Ensure reliable preservation and effective access to digital data for research, development, and education in science, technology, and engineering.

The Interagency Working Group on Digital Data (IWGDD) of the National Science and Technology Council's(NSTC) Committee on Science recently issued a report detailing a strategy to "ensure that digital scientific data can be reliably preserved for maximum use in catalyzing progress in science and society".

Their goal is to achieve this vision:

"Create a comprehensive framework of transparent, evolvable, extensible policies and management and organizational structures that provide reliable, effective access to the full spectrum of public digital scientific data. Such a framework will serve as a driving force for American leadership in science and in a competitive, global information society."

Their recommendations are that:

  • a National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Subcommittee for digital scientific data preservation, access, and interoperability be created;
  • appropriate departments and agencies lay the foundations for agency digital scientific data policy and make the policy publicly available; and
  • agencies promote a data management planning process for projects that generate

preservation data.

The full report can be obtained at http://www.nitrd.gov/about/Harnessing_Power_Web.pdf

Technologies that Support Data Preservation

coming soon


Preservation Definitions

Data Archiving: Formally preserving data and information and making it available for an identified but potentially large and changing group of data consumers or users (Derived from the ISO standard Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model (CCSDS, 2002)). This definition applies to the archiving of any type of data or information whether it is a physical sample, a medieval manuscript, a photograph, or a digital data file.

Digital Preservation: “The series of actions and interventions required to ensure continued and reliable access to authentic digital objects for as long as they are deemed to be of value. This encompasses not just technical activities, but also all of the strategic and organisational considerations that relate to the survival and management of digital material.” Defined by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) of the United Kingdom (Pennock, 2006, 1).

Digital Curation: “Maintaining and adding value to a trusted body of digital information for current and future use; specifically, the active management and appraisal of data over the life cycle of scholarly and scientific materials.” Defined by the DCC (http://www.dcc.ac.uk/about/).

Data Management: “Data Resource Management is the development and execution of architectures, policies, practices and procedures that properly manage the full data life cycle needs of an enterprise.” Defined by the Data Management Association, International (http://www.dama.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3339).

Data Stewardship: “All activities that preserve and improve the information content, accessibility, and usability of data and metadata. These activities include maintaining a scal¬able and reliable infrastructure to support long-term access and preservation, preserving data access and archive integrity during media migration and software evolution, providing effective data support services and tools for users, and enhancing data and metadata by adding information that is established throughout the data life cycle.” As defined by the National Research Council Committee on Archiving and Accessing Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA (NRC, 2007, 41).

Provenance and Context: See the Interagency Data Stewardship/LifeCycle Workshop Report


References

Duerr et al., 2004, "Challenges in Long Term Data Stewardship", Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies. (PDF)

McKinney et al., 2001, "Earth Sciences Data Lifecycle Study", NASA SEEDS Data Lifecycle report (PDF).

NRC (National Research Council). 2007. Environmental Data Management at NOAA: Archiving, Stewardship, and Access. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. 116 pp.

Pennock, M. 2006. Digital Preservation—Continued access to authentic digital assets. Digital Curation Center.

USGCRP, "Global Change Science Requirements for Long-Term Archiving", Report of the NASA-NOAA Workshop, Sept 28-30, 1998.

Space Studies Board, 2000, "Ensuring the Climate Record from the NPP and NPOESS Meteorological Satellites"



Cluster Chair: Ruth Duerr