Community Watch (CPP-018)

Definition and scope

The TDA must monitor its Designated Community in order to identify its evolving needs and knowledge.

Information packages within a TDA are stored for a group of current and future users (i.e. the Designated Community). A Designated Community is always specific to a TDA and it may change over time (e.g. as data from a different sub-discipline are being deposited or the method of intended access or interaction to data changes over time). In addition to the Designated Community itself, the TDA should define what can be assumed as knowledge within the Designated Community (e.g. what language they speak, what scientific methods they understand and what file formats or metadata standards they can interact with). This is referred to as the Designated Community’s Knowledge Base. Lastly, the TDA must plan for the Preservation Objective, meaning how the Designated Community can use the data. A Preservation Objective should be specific, actionable and measurable. While the Designated Community is the “who” and “with what knowledge or skills”, the Preservation Objective is the “how”.

For example, see these two fictive TDAs:

• TDA1 preserves civil engineering data for research and practice within Germany. The data preserved is currently 3D point-cloud scans in file formats LAS/LAZ and e57. Based on the content they currently preserve, they define their Designated Community as researchers from the discipline of civil engineering including all subdisciplines as well as specialists working in these fields (e.g. as urban engineers within Germany). The Designated Community’s knowledge base is built on the German language; includes principles such as mechanics and materials science; methods such as simulation and surveying as well as tools such as Computer-Aided Design; and 3D point-cloud scanning. One of the Preservation Objectives is for the Designated Community to be able to render separate point-cloud scans of the same location on their own systems and to perform tasks including deformation monitoring on the data.
• TDA2 preserves oral history data in a university located in Spain. The data preserved is from a long-term collaborative research project between the institutes for political science and for recent Spanish history and contains interviews with contemporary witnesses on the Spanish Transformation to Democracy (La Transición Española). The data can currently only be accessed by staff from the two affiliated institutes. In 2040, access to the data will be opened to the wider research community. The TDA defines its Designated Community as the researchers from the two affiliated institutes as well as researchers for those disciplines throughout Spain. The Designated Community ’s knowledge base is built on the Spanish, Catalan, Galician and Basque languages; includes the historical context of the data; political science concepts; and oral history and testimonial methods. One of the Preservation Objectives is for the Designated Community to be able to load the original data into their qualitative data software for coding and thematic analysis.

The CPPs assume that the TDA’s Designated Community including its knowledge base and the Preservation Objective have been defined and are available in guiding documentation such as a mission statement, a preservation policy or preservation action plan(s). Such a Designated Community definition typically includes current depositors or data producers and current consumers of the data, but also needs to take into account potential future user groups.

Often, the Designated Communites themselves look to the TDA for advice on data handling practices, especially connected to file formats, data packaging or Metadata. To adequately support current day and future users, it is therefore crucial to also monitor usage trends, good practice and risks associated with file formats, data types and Metadata which the TDA already supports or intends to support in the future. This information is typically found outside of the research communities themselves. Communities to turn to for this include digital preservation, digital curation and research data management communities as well as existing communities around file formats, Metadata and software.

OAIS has the functions “Monitor Designated Community” and “Monitor Technology” feed into the “Preservation Watch” function. All three are part of the preservation planning functional entity. In addition, OAIS mentions the environment itself (e.g. financial, political, environmental) as a potential source to monitor and feed into Preservation Watch. In practice, the monitoring functions are often described as “Technology Watch”, “Organisation Watch”, “Community Watch” and “Preservation Watch”.

Within the scope of the CPP, Community Watch covers monitoring of:

• The Designated Community, its Knowledge Base and Usage Scenarios;
• Digital Preservation, Digital Curation, Research Data Management communities;
• File Format Communities and (emerging) good practice, risks and developments;
• Metadata Communities and (emerging) good practice, risks and developments;
• Software Communities and (emerging) good practice risks and developments.

The CPP Community Watch therefore covers more than monitoring the Designated Community. It integrates information sources closer to the Technology Watch or Monitor Technology (OAIS) function. Since it is important to stress the relevance of the unique Designated Communites whose Preservation Objective needs to be supported by matching tools and processes within the TDA, the name Community Watch was chosen here.