wp1-cpp-descriptions
Core Preservation Processes (CPPs)
Core Preservation Processes are developped within the EOSC EDEN project. See the project page for additional information.
Introducing Core Preservation Processes
A Core Preservation Process is a specific action that every Trustworthy Digital Archive should undertake adequately - either directly or through its associated parties or services, in order to fulfill its digital preservation missions as evidenced in its preservation policy.
The following assertions define the scope of CPPs:
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They focus on the operational activities required by digital preservation (understood as covering short- to long-term preservation) and do not cover strategic/managerial digital preservation activities nor the whole list of activities of a generic information management system, including secure IT infrastructures.
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Though digital preservation requires a deep knowledge of the properties, structure and possible uses of digital objects, which can be domain or discipline specific, the scope of CPP is limited to generic processes that take place in general when performing digital preservation regardless of specific content, domain or discipline.
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The list of CPPs and their description are established by a group of digital preservation practitioners. In addition, consensus within the digital preservation community about this list will be evidenced by references to prominent maturity models, self-assessment, and certification frameworks used by said community.
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CPPs are described as a sequence of implementable steps, either by humans or by automation.
List of CPPs
You can access individually the last version of each Core Preservation Process through the following links:
- CPP-001 Checksum Generation and Recording
- CPP-002 Checksum Validation
- CPP-003 Integrity Checking
- CPP-004 Data Corruption Management
- CPP-005 Identifier Management
- CPP-006 AIP Batch Export
- CPP-007 Virus Scanning
- CPP-008 File Format Identification
- CPP-009 Metadata Extraction
- CPP-010 File Format Validation
- CPP-011 Replication
- CPP-012 Risk Mitigation
- CPP-013 Object Management Reporting
- CPP-014 File Migration
- CPP-015 Emulation and Rendering Tools
- CPP-016 Metadata Ingest and Management
- CPP-017 Disposal
- CPP-018 Community Watch
- CPP-019 Data Quality Assessment
- CPP-020 Rights Management
- CPP-021 AIP Versioning
- CPP-022 Significant Properties Definition
- CPP-023 Risk Properties Definition and Extraction
- CPP-024 Enabling Discovery
- CPP-025 Enabling Access
- CPP-026 File Normalisation
- CPP-027 File Repair
- CPP-028 Creation of Derivatives
- CPP-029 Ingest
- CPP-030 Refreshment
Visualisation tool
The CPP Visualisation tool allows you to explore the relationships that exists between the CPPs.
The tool groups the CPPs in one of two selectable classification schemas and allows you to filter on relation types. The graph can be clicked-through to deep-dive into the relations and related CPPs.
Next to the graph, the tool also provides a grid representation where you have an overview of all source and target CPPs and their relationships. You can click on a box to see the relationship details and access the descriptions of the CPPs on either end of the relation.
Contribution and Discussion
Do you have feedback or questions? EOSC EDEN warmly welcomes your thoughts on the CPPs. Please engage in the discussion through our Github repository:
Other Resources
Zenodo Publication
You can refer to the CPPs in an earlier version by citing this Zenodo publication: EOSC EDEN T1.2, Micky Lindlar, Bertrand Caron, et al. M1.1 Report on Identification of Core Preservation Processes. Zenodo, 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.16992451.
Video Presentations
A three-minute introduction:
A fifty-minute webinar:
Glossary and Data Model
CPPs rely on a high-level data model that combines three high-level entities: Information Package, Information Object, and Metadata. These notions and their subtypes are described in the glossary:
EOSC-EDEN Task 1.2, M1.1 Report on Identification of Core Preservation Processes: Glossary, 2025-08-31. Available at https://github.com/EOSC-EDEN/wp1-cpp-descriptions/blob/main/03_Glossary.pdf.
The Glossary also includes other terms specific to digital preservation used in process descriptions. Particular attention is given to the types of policies and procedures used to configure the processes. Finally, the various types of relationships linking the processes are described.