Transcript Australian Society of Archivists Conference Perth 2008 1

Australian Society of Archivists Victorian Branch Seminar
Accessibility over time – the retention, use and re-use of information in the digital age
Thursday 21 August 2008, 2 - 4.30pm
Outcomes from the Clever
Recordkeeping Metadata Project
Joanne Evans and the CRKM Research team
www.monash.edu.au
Outline
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Metadata
Recordkeeping metadata
Clever Recordkeeping Metadata Project
Outcomes
– Service oriented architectures and
implications for recordkeeping
– Developing and implementing
recordkeeping metadata standards
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Maturing understanding of metadata
• From ‘data about data’ to:-
Data are any and all complex data entities from
observations, experiments, simulations, models, and
higher order assemblies, along with the associated
documentation needed to describe and interpret the data.
Metadata are a subset of data, and are data about data.
Metadata summarize data content, context, structure,
interrelationships, and provenance (information on history
and origins). They add relevance and purpose to data,
and enable the identification of similar data in different
data collections.
National Science Foundation, Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery,
March 2007 http://www.nsf.gov/od/oci/CI_Vision_March07.pdf
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Defining metadata
• Metadata
– structured data/information that describes an object in order
to facilitate its understanding, management and use.
• Characteristics
– Metadata is recursive
– Metadata may be intrinsic
– Metadata may be extrinsic
– Metadata is dynamic
– Metadata is complex
– Metadata may apply at various layers of granularity,
aggregation and abstraction
– Purpose of metadata determines the attributes of the
object that are described
– Metadata may be different and similar across metadata
communities
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Defining metadata (continued)
• Metadata communities
– Resource Discovery, Recordkeeping, Geospatial,
Digital Rights, Preservation, Document
Management, Data management, etc.
• Metadata creation processes
– Describing, Titling, Identifying, Annotating, Labelling,
Cataloguing, Classifying, Categorising, Relating,
Audit trailing, Tagging, etc.
• Creation and management challenges
– Expense
– Resource intensive
– Quality assurance
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Recordkeeping Metadata
• Standardised information that identifies, authenticates,
describes, manages and makes accessible, through time
and space, documents created in the context of social
and business activity.
– Traditionally some of this metadata has been captured in
records systems and some in archival control systems
and finding aids. And some of it has been present in the
physical form, ordering, juxtaposition and location of
records. Increasingly recordkeeping metadata is also
captured in workflow, document management and
knowledge management systems, and it is essential to
make what was before evident in the physicality of the
record explicit in metadata.
Source: Records Continuum Research Group, SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Project Glossary,
http://www.sims.monash.edu.au/research/rcrg/research/spirt/glossary.html
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Clever Recordkeeping Metadata Project
ARC Linkage Project mid 2003-2006
Chief Investigator
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Professor Sue McKemmish, Monash
University
Partner Investigators
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Professor Anne Gilliland-Swetland, UCLA
Mr Adrian Cunningham, National Archives
of Australia
Industry Partners and Collaborators
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National Archives of Australia
State Records Authority of New South
Wales
Australia Society of Archivists, Committee
on Descriptive Standards
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/groups/rcrg/crkm
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Challenges for electronic recordkeeping
• Manual descriptive processes
unsustainable
– cannot keep up with exponential
increases in volumes of records
created in the course of business
and social activities
– cannot be applied at lower levels
of granularity inherent to digital
medium
– cannot keep up with
transformations in way people
work and communicate brought
about by digital and network
technologies
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Metadata systems approach
• Bearman, Archivaria, 1993
– develop tools and methods ‘to acquire descriptions of
individual records, files and record-keeping systems
directly from the self-documenting features of electronic
records systems.’
• Hedstrom, Archivaria, 1993
– ‘In the electronic era, the descriptive paradigm will shift
from the practice of augmenting scarce descriptive
information to one of selecting from an abundance of
metadata, which could form a complete audit trail of all
actions taken to create, update and modify a record, and
all of its uses. Automated systems have the capacity to
capture and record far more descriptive information than
was technically possible or economically feasible with
manual systems.’
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Services model
Points to description
Registry
Service
Descriptions
Locate service
Describes
service
Finds
service
Exchange messages
Consumer
Service
Source: Based on diagram from http://www.softstar-inc.com/
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Service oriented architectures (SOA)
Recordkeeping Services
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Recordkeeping in SOA
Metadata Broker
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Metadata Broker as cluster of web services
Request the AGEMS –
RKMSCA crosswalk
Translation Service
Registry Service
Web Service Layer
Web Service Layer
Request to
translate
AGEMS to
RKMSCA
AGEMS – RKMSCA
Crosswalk Service
Web Service Layer
AGEMS
RKMSCA
Metadata Broker Client
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Are we ready for service orientation?
Design for recordkeeping
Design for recordkeeping metadata
Design for interoperability
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To participate in SOA …
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Overcome paper thinking and
dominance of paper paradigm
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To participate in SOA …
• Move beyond static resource discovery
metadata models
Mandates
Business
Integrated in
Do
Records
Management
business
Do
Account for
Execution
of
Event
History
Event
Plan
Is
documented
in
Current
State
Establish
Competencies
of
People
(Agents)
Identity
Description
Use
Relation
Govern
Record,
Manage,
Enable use
Create
Used by
Records
PAST
FUTURE
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To participate in SOA …
• Standards for machine rather than
human processability
Abstract
Recordkeeping
Metadata
Standards
Conceptual Model
Metadata/Data
Standard
Version 1
Metadata/Data
Standard
Version 2
Metadata/Data
Standard
Version n
Representation
Encoding 1
Encoding 2
Encoding n
Version 1
Version 2
Version n
Transport and Exchange
Registry
Objects
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Standards and interoperability
• Standards compliance does not
guarantee interoperability
– Recordkeeping metadata standards are just
a part of an infrastructure for interoperability
 Balance between standardisation
activities for best current practice versus
standardisation activities to deliver
better next generation practices
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Implementing recordkeeping metadata
Schema
Email
Email and
Desktop
Schema
Desktop
Applications
Applications
Business
Schema
Systems
Schema
Records Web Management
Web
System
Management
Management
Crosswalk
Application
Systems
Archival
Archival
Gateways
Gateways
Records
Archival
Subject
MetadataSchema
Subject
Crosswalk
Schema
Management
Management Crosswalk Schema
Portals
Broker
Portals
Application
Application
Crosswalk
Business
Information
Systems
Archival
Metadata
Management
Broker
Application
Community
Community
Archives
Archives
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Innovate to service oriented future
Recordkeeping Services
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• For more information see the Clever
Recordkeeping Metadata Project Website
• http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/
research/groups/rcrg/crkm
[email protected]
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