Quiz for day 1 of course

OAIS defined the Designated Community as: An identified group of potential Consumers who should be able to understand a particular set of information. The Designated Community may be composed of multiple user communities. A Designated Community is defined by the Archive and this definition may change over time.

Metadata is normally defined as data about data and could be anything, for example a book describing data or a digitally encoded dictionary

OAIS defines Representation Information as: The information that maps a Data Object into more meaningful concepts.
An example of Representation Information for a bit sequence which is a FITS file might consist of the FITS standard which defines the format plus a dictionary which defines the meaning in the file of keywords which are not part of the standard. Another example is JPEG software which is used to render a JPEG file; rendering the JPEG file as bits is not very meaningful to humans but the software, which embodies an understanding of the JPEG standard, maps the bits into pixels which can then be rendered as an image for human viewing.

OAIS defines the Preservation Planning Functional Entity as follows: The OAIS functional entity which provides the services and functions for monitoring the environment of the OAIS and which provides recommendations and preservation plans to ensure that the information stored in the OAIS remains accessible to, and understandable by, and sufficiently usable by, the Designated Community over the Long Term, even if the original computing environment becomes obsolete

Monitoring the environment must include monitoring the Designated Community at least to the extent of maintaining understandability.

Even small repositories must make plans to ensure the holdings are preserved.

The repository must be able to make changes to its plans as the environment, including technology, software, staff and resources, changes.

Section 1.2 of the OAIS Reference Model states:

This reference model does not specify a design or an implementation. Actual implementations may group or break out functionality differently.

OAIS deines an Information Property as:
That part of the Content Information as described by the Information Property Description. The detailed expression, or value, of that part of the information content is conveyed by the appropriate parts of the Content Data Object and its Representation Information.
OAIS also states that:
The term “significant property”, which has various definitions in the literature, is sometimes used in a way that is consistent with its being a Transformational Information Property

OAIS defines Authenticity as:

The degree to which a person (or system) regards an object as what it is purported to be. Authenticity is judged on the basis of evidence.

Different repositories can define different Designated Communities for the digital objects they hold, even if they hold the same digital objects.

OAIS defines Packaging Information as: The information that is used to bind and identify the components of an Information Package. For example, it may be the ISO 9660 volume and directory information used on a CD-ROM to provide the content of several files containing Content Information and Preservation Description Information.
If we regard an Information Package as a Data Object then the Packaging Information allows us to understand the Data Object at least insofar as one can unpack it. The Packaging Information may therefore be regarded as a kind of Representation Information.

Figure 4-13 of OAIS shows the UML diagram of a general Information Package shows

• the number of Package Description elements is shown as “*” – which means there may be any number of these from zero upwards.
• the same applies to Preservation Description Information.
• Content Information is shown as “0..1” therefore there may be zero of these.
• Packaging Inormation has no numbers against the arrows which means there must be one.

OAIS conformance is defined in section 1.4 as follows.
A conforming OAIS Archive implementation shall support the model of information described in 2.2. The OAIS Reference Model does not define or require any particular method of implementation of these concepts.
A conforming OAIS Archive shall fulfill the responsibilities listed in 3.1. Subsection 3.2 provides examples of the mechanisms that may be used to discharge the responsibilities identified in 3.1. These mechanisms are not required for conformance. A separate standard, as noted in 1.5, has been produced on which accreditation and certification processes can be built.
A software system may support the information model but cannot fulfil the mandatory responsibilities.

The repository must ensure that a member of the Designated Community can understand and use the Content Information, and must also be able to makke a judgement about Authenticity.
ALthough the repository must ensure that, if desired, a member of the Designated Community is able to trace back to the original submitted Data Objects with evidence supporting its Authenticity, the Designated Community does not have to be able to re-create the SIPs.

The Functional Model is not mentioned in the Conformance section (section 1.4) of OAIS which states:

A conforming OAIS Archive implementation shall support the model of information described in 2.2. The OAIS Reference Model does not define or require any particular method of implementation of these concepts.

A conforming OAIS Archive shall fulfill the responsibilities listed in 3.1. Subsection 3.2 provides examples of the mechanisms that may be used to discharge the responsibilities identified in 3.1. These mechanisms are not required for conformance

The Functional Model provides useful terminology that is applicable to all disciplines and organizations that do, or expect to, preserve and provide information in digital form, these terms cannot match all of those familiar to any particular discipline (e.g., traditional Archives, digital libraries, science data centers). Rather, the approach taken is to use terms that are not already overloaded with meaning so as to reduce conveying unintended meanings. This terminology then allows clear communication about archives between those with different backgrounds.

OAIS defines Information Packages as logical containers, hence they may be constructed in various ways. Therefore an AIP does not have to be a single file, nor is it required that there is only one type of AIP.

However the repository must be able to extract information from the AIP otherwise how can it be preserving the information it contains.

An Information Property is defined by OAIS as That part of the Content Information as described by the Information Property Description. The detailed expression, or value, of that part of the information content is conveyed by the appropriate parts of the Content Data Object and its Representation Information.

Therefore the value can be found in the Content Data Object.

It is not part of the Context Information and it is not used as a search parameter.

There may not be a harvesting process – that usually applies to something like web harvesting.

Provenance is not about the intelligibility of the Content Information.

The Provenance Information must certainly identify the Producer.

OAIS defines Descriptive Information as:

The set of information, consisting primarily of Package Descriptions, which is provided to Data Management to support the finding, ordering, and retrieving of OAIS information holdings by Consumers.

Also section 4.2.1.4.4 Descriptive Information states:

The Information Objects described previously in this section provide the information necessary to enable the Long Term Preservation function of the Archive. In addition to preserving information, the OAIS must provide adequate features to allow Consumers to locate information of potential interest, analyze that information, and order desired information. This is accomplished through a specialization of the Information Object called Descriptive Information, which contains the data that serves as the input to documents or applications called Access Aids. The Descriptive Information is generally derived from the Content Information and PDI. The Descriptive Information can be viewed as an index to enable efficient access to the associated Information Package via associated Access Aids.  Access Aids are documents or applications that can be used to locate, analyze, retrieve, or order information from the OAIS.

The definition of Submission Information Package (SIP) states:

An Information Package that is delivered by the Producer to the OAIS for use in the construction or update of one or more AIPs and/or the associated Descriptive Information.

Section 4.2.2.2 states:

The Descriptive Information associated with a SIP is likely to be provided prior to submitting the SIP to the OAIS, but it may be provided at any time. It may be no more than a text description with a name or title, carried by the Packaging Information, by which the SIP may be recognized.

Therefore Descriptive Information may be captured at Ingest but may be added to afterwards.