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E-ARK Partners

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NatArchHungary
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UniofPortsmouth
 

WP1 - Project Co-Ordination

Work Package Lead

University of Brighton (UoB)

What the Work Package did

E-ARK comprised a complex series of inter-dependent activities, which delivered a large number of outputs over a period of 3 years. These were managed to ensure that each output was delivered on time and to budget, as well as in a way that interoperated with the other parts of the project.

The Project provided regular (annual) progress reports and financial statements to the European Commission to explain and justify the co-funding with which they are helping to support the project to achieve its objectives.

We managed E-ARK in accordance with the suite of methodologies known as the Swirl™ Suite originally created by the UK Office of Government Commerce and now managed by Axelos:

  • PRINCE2® - Project Management
  • MSP® - Programme Management
  • M_o_R® - Risk Management and
  • MoV® - Management of Value

We managed the project’s relationship with the European Commission, liaising with their Project Officer(s) and Finance Department as required. We were responsible for the submission of the project’s work to the European Commission.

We had overall responsibility for the financial management of the project. We arranged for the submission of financial statements and costs claims to the EC, including ensuring that audits are carried out where necessary. We dealt with any questions which the EC had regarding our returns and then arranged for the distribution of grants when these are received.

At the end of each year we produced an Annual Report on the project, a summary of which is published on this website.

We also organised and lead the Annual Scientific Review conducted into the project's work by the EC.

In addition to having responsibility for the structures by which the project is governed, we also provide support for a number of Advisory Boards representing the Archive, Technical and Commercial Supplier Communities with whom we are co-operating in our work.

Highlights

  • Agreement of overall Description of Work with the EC
  • Successful completion of Year 1, 2 and 3 Reviews
  • Preparation of Year 2, Year 3 and end-project reports

 

 

WP5 Archival Records Access Services

Work Package Lead

Danish National Archives

What the Work Package did

This work package defined an E-ARK Dissemination Information Package (E-ARK-DIP) format, and provided access methods and interfaces for structured and unstructured archival records. Referring to the OAIS reference model the consumer gets access to the information in the archive by using an access and presentation system. The consumer requests information from the archive by using the access system, which requests the database of the archive to retrieve the matching archival information packages (AIPs). These AIPs are disseminated by the system into Dissemination Information Package DIPs. These DIPs are used by the presentation system to present the contained information to the consumer.

Highlights

  • GAP report
  • E-ARK DIP draft specification
  • Access Component overview diagram
  • Access use cases and tool requirement
  • Search facilities available
  • Prototypes of order management tool, AIP-DIP converter; DIP presentation tools

Public Deliverables

  • D5.3) E-ARK DIP pilot specification (revision of D5.2) 
  • D5.4) Search, Access and Display Interfaces 

Conference Papers/Publications

  • Thirifays A., Hougaard K., What’s E-ARK: The DIP format (abstract and presentation), ICA Annual Conference, Reykjavik, Iceland, 28 September, 2015.
  • Thirifays A., Hougaard K., Towards a common approach for access to digital archival records in Europe (article and presentation), iPRES2015, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, on November 2-6 2015.

WP3 - Transfer of Records to Archives

Work Package Lead

National Archives of Estonia (NAE)

What the Work Package did

The overall objective of this work package was to ensure that records and their metadata could be exported from source systems, prepared for transfer and ultimately transferred and ingested into archival repositories in a way which is efficient, reliable and applicable across all European countries.

The first stage was to gather information on current practice, methodologies and tools. This information was then be used to develop best practice and standardisation through the creation of:

  • A central methodology and model requirements for the export of records and their metadata, building largely on the acknowledged MoReq requirements;
  • A pan-European SIP format specification which provides sufficient standardisation for automated solutions, working with scenarios for archiving both individual records and full records systems, the initial version of which will be circulated among stakeholders for feedback before finalisation; and
  • SIP creator tools that are compatible with the new specification based on existing tools from ES Solutions and the Danish National Archives. Stakeholder feedback will also be important to the development of these tools.

Highlights to Date

  • SIP specification defined
  • SIP creation tools

Public Deliverables

Conference Papers/Publications

 

WP4 Archival Records Preservation

Work Package Lead

Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT)

What the Work Package did

This work package specified an archival information package format (AIP) and implemented the conversion of a submission information package (SIP) into an AIP that complied with the format specification.

The AIP format specified a directory hierarchy providing a clear separation between the actual content to be preserved, the metadata describing the content, and the preservation metadata recording digital provenance information.

The result is a highly flexible and extensible structure together with a best practice approach of using metadata for structuring and preserving archival information packages over the long-term. Special attention was paid to the requirement of being able to handle very large data sets which have to be split into several parts because it is not possible to archive them as a single coherent unit.

The implementation of the SIP to AIP conversion represents a prototype implementation of the specified AIP format and is based on architectural principles allowing for scalable and parallelised information package transformation. In this sense, the work package develops a SIP to AIP conversion software based on modular conversion components in order to enable information package transformation most appropriate for each information package type (e.g. ERMS, database, GIS, etc.).

Highlights 

  • AIP format specification published
  • Vocabulary Manager deployed and online
  • MoReq2010 Validator deployed and online
  • Service for validating a MoReq SIP
  • Ability to map MoReq exports with E-ARK SIPs and consequently with E-ARK AIPs
  • SIP to AIP conversion as part of the integrated prototype
  • Recommendations for OLAP related data transformations during SIP to AIP conversion

Public Deliverables

Conference Papers/Publications

  • WP4 Presentation, DLM-Forum Members Meeting, Luxembourg, Luxembourg, 14-15 October, 2015.

WP2 - Use Cases and Pilots

Work Package Lead

National Archives of Hungary (NAH)

What the Work Package did

The overall objective of this work package was to ensure that the scenarios implemented at the pilot sites are both realistic and relevant. That is, that they brought together a meaningful subset at each site of the use cases that could provide the foundation for the general model of the E-ARK service. Use cases were defined for workflows across the record lifecycle and presented functional and non-functional requirements. The accompanying pilot scenarios defined the business and operational contexts against which the pilot will be evaluated. Both were defined in UML and plain language to allow ease of communication both within the project and with relevant stakeholders.

The following tasks were undertaken:

  • Definition of the general model and use cases with reference to the OAIS model. This included the common framework for the scenarios that was taken into account during the project as well as clearly defining the complex scenarios involved and ensuring that they are defined at the same conceptual level.
  • A comprehensive survey of the legal and organisational framework under which European records management, preservation and access takes place. This included key issues such as requirements for data protection, open government, seamless access, management of hybrid data and collaboration with agencies, with the hope of encouraging greater harmonisation in both understanding and approach.
  • Support for tool developers by providing necessary information including technical documentation and definitions of workflows.
  • Definition of the pilot scenarios including tools to be deployed and the level of activity required to bridge the gaps of currently existing solutions. In addition to the 7 full-scale pilots there were also shorter ‘stretch’ pilots and a ‘beta’ program to allow external validation.
  • Support and execution of the pilots was undertaken according to a methodological framework that specified the input/output points and the uniform principles to be applied across different areas to ensure comparable results.
  • Production of the final report on the pilot activities, listing resources used and providing an evaluation of the progress and final results against the project objectives and milestones.

 

Highlights

  • General model for E-ARK services and pilots
  • Report on Legal Issues
  • E-ARK Pilots
  • Final recommendations for best practice

Public Deliverables

Conference Papers/Publications

 

  1. WP6 - Archival Storage, Services and Integration
  2. WP7 - Evaluation and Assessment
  3. About E-ARK
  4. E-ARK Closing Conference

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