Object Management Reporting (CPP-013)

Definition and scope

Object management reporting is a process in which the TDA creates reports; outputs Provenance metadata; and produces statistical data on the content it preserves. The reporting is needed to enable effective management of Objects. Reporting is done for both the TDA itself, helping it in its preservation planning and as input for Risk Mitigation (CPP-012), and for the designated communities and stakeholders that produce and consume the data. Effective reporting enables a TDA to conduct digital preservation and to select the Information packages or Objects when performing preservation actions.

Reporting on the content includes reports and Provenance metadata from other CPPs that perform actions on digital content. For example, this includes processes that periodically check the quality of the data in Data Quality Assessment (CPP-019) or during triggered events such as Ingest (CPP-029) and Enabling Access (CPP-025):

• Reports from periodic Integrity Checking (CPP-003);
• Preservation actions taken and documented in Data Corruption Management (CPP-004);
• Virus Scanning reports (CPP-007);
• File Format Identification (CPP-008) reports;
• File Format Validation (CPP-010) reports;
• File Migration (CPP-014);
• Data on Emulation and Rendering Tools (CPP-015);
• Metadata from Metadata Ingest and Management (CPP-016);
• Metadata from Rights Management (CPP-020);
• Metadata from Significant Properties Definition (CPP-022);
• Preservation actions taken and documented in File Repair (CPP-027);
• Data from the Creation of Derivatives (CPP-028) process;
• Metadata from the access and use of Objects in TDA by the designated community;
• Metadata on the data volumes and growth rates of the Objects held by the TDA.

As the purpose of reporting is to enable the preservation and the management of digital Objects, the reports usually cover the main types of data that a TDA operates with. This may include data on:

• File formats;
• Technical metadata and significant properties of Objects;
• Tools and software needed to manage the content;
• The health of Objects and actions taken to remedy errors;
• The hardware infrastructure;
• Metadata and metadata standards;
• The provenance of the Objects;
• The licenses and rights to retain, preserve and provide access to Objects;
• The level of usage of Objects in the TDA;

The report types produced in the reporting process can be categorised as follows:

• Statistical data (e.g. number of Objects, file sizes etc.): Used for helping a TDA or stakeholder assess the scope of preservation actions;
• Provenance metadata (i.e. documented preservation actions by the TDA): Used for assessing the state of Objects, the so called "health" of the Files, and to add authenticity by documenting the life-cycle of all digital content in a TDA;
• In depth machine-actionable reports (usually produced by tools): These are used as input in other processes conducted by the TDA;
• Links to knowledge base resources (e.g. file format registries): These are used to help a TDA in preservation planning.

Reporting activities as well as the report types listed above feed into a wide range of management processes and decision making. Some examples include:

• Risk assessment and preservation planning (e.g. using reports on file formats);
• Reporting to funders and stakeholders (e.g. by providing usage statistics);
• Capacity planning and purchasing decisions (e.g. purchasing and refreshment of storage infrastructure based on statistics on data volumes and growth rates);
• Compliance assessments (e.g. using reports on rights and participant consent to check that personal data is retained in compliance with GDPR);
• Optimisation and cost management (e.g. identification of expensive or inefficient processes based on execution time and steps required, or optimising the use of different storage classes for frequently or infrequently accessed data based on usage statistics);
• Identification of anomalies in error rates or failures (e.g. unusually problematic content from specific depositors);
• Deaccessioning of Objects (e.g. reports on Objects that no longer need to be retained because their retention schedules are about to expire, or reports on quality assessment that mean Objects no longer meet the needs of a designated community);
• Environmental sustainability (e.g. use of storage, processing and access statistics as an input to calculating carbon footprint).

When the process description uses the term report, it can be any of the above.