Report on the evaluation and impact assessment of training programmes

This report presents an evaluation and impact assessment of the training programmes organised by DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE) through its work on WorkPackage 2 – Training and Continuing Professional Development. It describes the methodology, organisation, structure, content, and audience composition of the DPE training events to date.
DPE designed a teaching methodology that combines access to pre-course and post-course materials online, lectures by experts and practitioners in the filed, practical exercises, and group discussions on key issues. Our assessment of the training events held to date has revealed that they were considered to be well organised and structured and that they provided effective teaching methods for participants, particularly through the number of hands-on exercises.

Read the Report [PDF, 422 KB], Published 27th April 2009

Managing Your Photographs: The Basics

Have you ever looked around your photo studio, home or small office and thought about the photos, the paper and electronic information you get through the mail box and email every day? What happens if you need those receipts from 3 year’s ago because you are being audited. Many of your financial records, bank statements, invoices from the phone and water company are saved both electronically and on paper. You pay bills on line in some cases and in others still pay by cheque at the bank.
What about all of the photos you’ve taken? Some are prints, some on 35 mm slides and yet others stored on your computer. How can you get at them if all the equipment you need to look at them keeps changing? Can you replace the lamp in that slide projector? What about the tape recordings and videos? And since you got that flat-bed scanner, you are now scanning photos and negatives into your computer so you can get at them more easily and dispose of the paper.
It all needs to be managed so that you can find it when you want to celebrate that 60th birthday, or need it for that tax audit. But how can the myriad types of information be organized and described? How can the important ones be preserved for the long term? How should email messages be handled? You need answers to these questions so that you can work effectively to get the information you need when you need it.

Read the Report [PDF, 1 600 KB], Published 14th April 2009

Self-administered Records Management and Long Term Access Module - Managing Your Information: The Basics

The guide is a series of modules which provide a series of high level tools and methods you can use to get control of your paper and electronic information, whether it’s for your family or your small business. In addition, you will find links to other resources which expand further on the points in each module. The quick tips give some hints about what you should be aware of and how you can simplify things.

Read the Report [PDF, 1 600 KB], Published 14th April 2009

Report on Social Networking Presence for DPE, WePreserve and Digital Preservation/Curation

This report documents the usage of Web 2.0 and social networking tools for DPE, WePreserve and Digital Preservation/Curation for dissemination on the Internet as well as for internal project communication. The report is based on internal report from Autumn 2008 called ‘How can DPE profit from Web 2.0?’.
Firstly, we provide an overview of the target communities. Then we discuss the basic terms such as Web 2.0, social networking, social marketing, and delineate possible uses for projects like DPE. Secondly we describe the Web 2.0 and social networking services which DPE used in the later part of the project life one by one and show their impact on the traffic of the website where possible. We highlight that some tools for collaborative authoring and instant communication were especially important for project workings. On-line publication tools like slideshare or issuu were used with varying success for dissemination. Use of the social networking tool Facebook promises to have a high potential for future projects.
In the third section we will give a short review of the DPE website development highlighting which Web 2.0 applications are integrated into the website.
Finally we provide recommendations for future European Commission funded projects. The experiences and lessons learned DPE gained through our venture into Web 2.0 can help shape the way future projects approach their community building and dissemination so that they can achieve greater impact and success.

Read the Report [PDF, 251KB], Published 31th March 2009

Feedback summary - DPE/Planets/CASPAR/nestor joint training event ‘Starting out: preserving digital objects – principles and practice’

The joint DPE/Planets/CAPAR/nestor training event, „Starting out: preserving digital objects – principles and practice?, was held at the National Library of Czech Republic and Charles University, Prague, on 13-17 October 2008. The event introduced participants to a number of key digital preservation principles and provided them with an opportunity to apply this knowledge through a number of hands-on exercises. In addition to the face to face training students were also provided with one week pre-course training and one week post-course training through the DPE moodle. The course was held in cooperation with the “WePreserve” Forum, providing participants an insight into cutting-edge research and development activity from a number of European Commission funded projects and with further networking opportunities to meet other researchers, international experts and practitioners across disciplinary and national boundaries. The event was targeted at practitioners and researchers from the archives, libraries and museums sector, as well as other institutions such as data archives, government departments, legal and commercial sectors with an interest in the topic.

Read the Report [PDF, 251KB], Published 10th March 2009

CeBIT 2008 Evaluation Report

CeBIT is the world's largest trade fair showcasing the state of the art in information technology. Held in Hannover, Germany, CeBIT 2008 ran form Tuesday the 3rd to the Sunday the 9th of March 2008 and attracted 495,000 visitors up 3% on the previous year, with visitors from outside Europe totalling over 100,000. CeBIT is regarded as the leading business event for digital technology and in 2008 hosted 5,845 exhibitors in total from 77 countries.

DPE, in cooperation with CASPAR, Planets and nestor, lead the coordination of a shared WePreserve stand to showcase our cutting edge digital preservation research and technology developments and to highlight their relevance to industry. A number of the projects’ tools and research themes were demonstrated by DPE, PLANETS, CASPAR and nestor. This report evaluates whether the four projects met their objectives in attendance and summarises the findings of the survey conducted with visitors to the stand.

Read the Report [PDF, 12KB], Published 21st August 2008

The Round Table on "Digital Preservation in Italy: experiences face to face"

The Round Table on "Digital Preservation in Italy: experiences face to face", organised by Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale (FRD) in collaboration with the DigitalPreservationEurope project, was held at the National Library of Florence on the 27th of May 2008.

Several of the main Italian institutions from ALM, e-health, e-government, research institutions, ICT and media attended the round table to ascertain the state of art of digital preservation in different sectors in Italy and identify common points of interest, obstacles, emerging topics and new trends. The goal of the event was to identify possible areas of cooperation, stimulate synergies and coordination mechanisms around digital preservation at national level that could also be linked in the DPE international framework.

Read the Report [PDF, 12KB], Published 20th June 2008

D3.2 Repository Planning Checklist and Guidance

The purpose of this document is to present a tool, the Planning Tool for Trusted Electronic Repositories (PLATTER) which provides a basis for a digital repository to plan the development of its goals, objectives and performance targets over the course of its lifetime in a manner which will contribute to the repository establishing trusted status amongst its stakeholders. PLATTER is not in itself an audit or certification tool but is rather designed to complement existing audit and certification tools by providing a framework which will allow new repositories to incorporate the goal of achieving trust into their planning from an early stage. A repository planned using PLATTER will find itself in a strong position when it subsequently comes to apply one of the existing auditing tools to confirm the adequacy of its procedures for maintaining the long term usability of and access to its material.

Read the Report [PDF, 348KB], Published 25th March 2008

PO3.3 Report on Workshop on Practices and Challenges in Preservation and Access for Scientific and Scholarly Digital Repositories

The Workshop on "Practices and Challenges in Preservation and Access for Scientific and Scholarly Digital Repositories" was held at the Humboldt University of Berlin on the 27th and 28th of November, 2007. 60 participants from 15 countries participated in sessions covering the major issues in repository organisation in Europe and beyond. Sessions covered Federated Repository Infrastructure, Selection Appraisal and Ingest, Operational Activity, Preservation Activity, and Quality Control and Self-audit. In addition, a number of participants remained in Berlin for a DPE/DCC Forum on Developing an International Framework for Audit and Participation the following day.

Read the Report [PDF, 64KB], Published 7th February 2008

DPE, PLANETS, nestor training event report

We are pleased to announce the release of a report on the first DPE, Planets and nestor joint training event, 'Principles of Digital Preservation: a hands-on approach'.

This training event was organized by the DPE partner, Institute of Library and Information science of Vilnius University, in cooperation with colleagues from the Planets[1] and nestor[2] projects and held in Vilnius on 1-5 October 2007. The aim of the event was to introduce the principles of digital preservation, and to explain the key needs and challenges in this area.

Read the Report [PDF, 115KB], Published 10th December 2007

nestor/DPE Winter School 2007 report

We are pleased to announce the release of a report on the Winter School 2007 of nestor the German "Network of Expertise in Long-Term Storage of Digital Resources", and DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE) in November 2007.

This five day training event was organised by the Goettingen State and University Library (SUB), as the nestor partner responsible for training and education, together with representatives from several FE and HE institutions. The event was generously sponsored by DPE and supported by the DELOS network of Excellence.

Read the Report [PDF, 8KB], Published 7th December 2007

PO3.4: Report on the Legal Framework on Repository Infrastructure Impacting on Cooperation Across Member States

The focus of this paper is the legal framework for the management of content of cooperating repositories. The focus will be on the regulation of copyright and protection of personal data.

That copyright is important when managing data repositories is common knowledge. However, there is an increasing tendency among authors not only to deposit their published scientific work, scientific articles, dissertations or books, but also the underlying data. In addition to this ordinary publicly available sources like internet web pages contain personal data, often of a sensitive nature. Due to this emergent trend repositories will have to comply with the rules governing the use and protection of personal data, especially in the medical and social sciences.

Open the Report [PDF, 179KB], Published 5th November 2007

DPE Sustainability and Exploitation Plan

The market for services that provide information, advice or guidance on digital preservation techniques and best practice is expanding. There is more demand for support than DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE) is currently resourced to address. The sustainability of DPE is dependent on its ability to expand on existing resources to exploit this market, while meeting the requirement of grant funding.

Open the Report [PDF, 1 MB], Published 31st October 2007

DPE Digital Preservation Research Roadmap

To stimulate funding for and innovation in digital preservation/curation research the DPE team analysed the research agendas produced and the research activities undertaken over the last twenty years, and offered experts a chance through an online delphi survey and interviews to contribute their ideas about what preservation research needs to be done.

Building on these investigations and contributions DPE has released a draft Research Roadmap identifying ten core domains for preservation research.

Open the Report [PDF, 239KB], Published 1st October 2007

DPE Advocacy and Outreach Plan

The Advocacy and Outreach Plan (AOP) is delivered within WP1 (Advocacy and outreach) of the Digital Preservation Europe (DPE) Coordination Action. The document intends to define a comprehensive strategy and a general framework for the activities of "digital preservation awareness raising", as outlined in WP1. To be more precise, it aims to:

• identify specific targets, i.e. specific professional communities and interest groups, to involve in awareness raising and consensus building actions;
• identify specific communications methods and instruments for each target;
• identify, within each community or interest group, single entities or institutions which could undertake a leadership role, acting as a fly wheel for digital preservation, records management, digital archiving and digital curation culture spreading in its own context;
• increase the visibility of EC-funded digital preservation activities, emphasizing its consistency and effectiveness.

Open the Report [PDF, 2.1 MB], Published 1st August 2007

Competence Centres: State of the Art Review

As part of its planned activity DPE has reviewed the current international landscape with regard to the availability and provision of digital curation and preservation expertise in the European Union and beyond.

Open the Report [PDF, 527KB], Published 14th May 2007

Market and Technology Trends Analysis

This report presents the Market and Technology Trends Analysis to be used and distributed by DPE, DigitalPreservationEurope, a project funded by the 6th Framework Programme, Priority IST-2005-2.5.10, action line: Access to and preservation of cultural and scientific resources. This deliverable has two main objectives:

• Market analysis based on experience and knowledge of all the contributors and the consultation of the main stakeholders on their needs and plans so that the outputs of the DPE project meet their present and future demands.
• Technology trends analysis providing the main DPE target groups with information on technological solutions available for digital preservation.

Open the Report [PDF, 904KB], Published 14th May 2007

nestor Spring School 2007 - report

nestor , the German "Network of Expertise in Long-Term Storage of Digital Resources", held its Spring School 2007 in Gernrode/Harz, Germany, from 11 – 15 March. This five day training event was organised by the Goettingen State and University Library (SUB), as the nestor partner responsible for training and education, together with representatives from FE and HE institutions. The event was sponsored by the Digital Preservation Europe (DPE) project and supported by the DELOS network of Excellence.

Open the Report [PDF, 8KB], Published 30th March 2007

DPE Outline of training principles and objectives

Digital preservation is an emerging field of research and practice. Implementation of ICT in production, management, distribution and use of information resources provided novel opportunities for support of business, decision-making, research, administration, education, cultural activities and processes which, as a consequence, are experiencing multiple transformations. The role of information in the creation of knowledge pre-conditioned an increased interest to digital preservation. It is critical to ensure long-term availability and understandability of information resources for further re-use and the development of new knowledge. Digital preservation solutions evolve in various communities that rarely communicate with other players in this field. Such situation causes fragmentation of efforts and knowledge in digital preservation. Traditional and acknowledged preservation professionals - archival, museum and library communities - have modelled major principles of preservation. However, these principles should evolve to fit into new technological infrastructure that pre-defines the main features of digital information. Digital preservation is a crucial activity fitting into information management in various organizational settings. In this context there is an urgent demand for educating professionals, capable to implement digital preservation initiatives in business companies, governmental agencies, memory institutions, research and educational establishments and etc.

Open the Report [PDF, 783 KB], Published 18th January 2007

DPE Dissemination Plan

This report describes the dissemination plan and dissemination strategies adopted and to be adopted by DPE, DigitalPreservationEurope, a project funded under the Sixth Framework Programme, Priority IST-2005-2.5.10, action line: Access to and preservation of cultural and scientific resources.

The objective of this Dissemination Plan is to identify and organise the activities to be performed in order to promote DPE aims and ambitious targets, and to disseminate the project outcomes around the world.

Open the Report [PDF, 533 KB], Published 30th October 2006