Trustworthy Policies for Distributed Repositories

A trustworthy repository provides assurance in the form of management documents, event logs, and audit trails that digital objects are being managed correctly. The assurance includes plans for the sustainability of the repository, the accession of digital records, the management of technology evolution, and the mitigation of the risk of data loss. A detailed assessment is provided by the ISO-16363:2012 standard, "Space data and information transfer systems—Audit and certification of trustworthy digital repositories." This book examines whether the ISO specification for trustworthiness can be enforced by computer actionable policies. An implementation of the policies is provided and the policies are sorted into categories for procedures to manage externally generated documents, specify repository parameters, specify preservation metadata attributes, specify audit mechanisms for all preservation actions, specify control of preservation operations, and control preservation properties as technology evolves. An application of the resulting procedures is made to enforce trustworthiness within National Science Foundation data management plans.

Dr. Reagan W. Moore is a professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, chief scientist for Data Intensive Cyber Environments at the Renaissance Computing Institute, and director of the Data Intensive Cyber Environments Center at University of North Carolina (UNC-CH). He coordinates research efforts in the development of data grids, digital libraries, and preservation environments. Developed software systems include the Storage Resource Broker data grid and the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System. Supported projects include the National Archives and Records Administration Transcontinental Persistent Archive Prototype and the science data grids for seismology, oceanography, climate, high-energy physics, astronomy, and bioinformatics. An ongoing research interest is the use of data-grid technology to automate the execution of management policies and validate the trustworthiness of repositories. Dr. Moore’s previous roles include the following: director of the DICE group at the San Diego Supercomputer Center; and Manager of production services at SDSC. He previously worked as a computational plasma physicist, at General Atomics on equilibrium and stability of toroidal fusion devices. He has a Ph.D. in plasma physics from the University of California, San Diego (1978), and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (1967).Dr. Hao Xu is a research scientist at the Data Intensive CyberEnvironment Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). He has been working on improving the rule engine and the rule language, and the metadata catalog of the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) since 2010. He developed the pluggable rule engine architecture that allows interoperability between different programming languages and the iRODS data management systems. He also developed QueryArrow, a semantically unified query engine that allows bidirectional integration of metadata from multiple heterogeneous metadata sources. His research interests include the theory of data management, automatic theorem proving, programming languages, distributed data systems, and formal methods in software development. He has a B.E. in Computer Science and Engineering and a B.S. minor in Applied Mathematics from Beihang University, and a Ph.D in Compuer Science from UNC-CH.Mike Conway is a software developer with over 20 years experience in distributed systems development. Mike is currently finishing up his master's degree in Information Science at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). Most recently, Mike has been an architect and developer on the iRODS data grid, as well as the DataNet Federation Consortium, developing interfaces and protocols to support distributed, policy-managed environments in support of scientific research and digital preservation. Mike is also a developer with the iRODS Consoritum, based at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at UNC-CH, contributing to the continued development of the iRODS open source data grid. Mike has also contributed to research in the areas of metadata management, applied cyberinfrastructure, and trusted digitial preservation environments.Dr. Arcot Rajasekar is a professor in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), and a chief scientist at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). Previously, he was at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, leading the Data Grids Technology Group. He has been involved in research and development of data grid middleware systems for over a decade and is a lead originator behind the concepts in the Storage Resource Broker (SRB) and the integrated Rule-Oriented Data Systems (iRODS), two premier data grid middleware systems developed by the Data Intensive Cyber Environments Group. Dr. Rajasekar has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park and has more than 100 publications in the areas of data grids, logic programming, deductive databases, digital library, and persistent archives.Jonathan Crabtree is Assistant Director for Cyberinfrastructure at the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). As assistant director, Crabtree completely revamped the institute's technology infrastructure and has positioned the institute to assume a leading national role in information archiving. He is co-designer of the Virtual Institute for Social Research (VISR) and its integration into the research data lifecycle. He is currently enrolled in the UNC School of Information and Library Science doctoral program with his area of interest focused on the auditing of trusted repositories.Dr. Helen R. Tibbo is an Alumni Distinguished Professor at the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), and teaches in the areas of archives and records management, digital preservation and access, appraisal, trustworthy repositories, and data curation. She developed the Archives and Records Management (ARM) Program at SILS and teaches in the SILS Post Master's Certificate in Data Curation. She is also the Director of a soon-to-be-offered Master's in Professional Science in Digital Curation degree program. She is also a Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and was SAA President 2010-2011. From 2006-2009, Dr. Tibbo was the Principal Investigator (PI) for the IMLS (Institute for Museum and Library Services)-funded DigCCurr I project that developed an International Digital Curation Curriculum for master's level students. She was also the PI for DigCCurr II (2008-2013) that extended the Digital Curation Curriculum to the doctoral level. In 2009, IMLS awarded Prof. Tibbo two additionalprojects, Educating Stewards of Public Information in the 21st Century (ESOPI-21) and Closing the Digital Curation Gap (CDCG). In 2011, IMLS awarded Dr. Tibbo funding for the Educating Stewards of the Public Information Infrastructure (ESOPI2) project that is continuing the work of ESOPI-21 through 2015. In April 2013, Dr. Tibbo received an IMLS award for the ""Curating Research Assets and Data using Lifecycle Education: Data Management Education Tools for Librarians, Archivists, and Content Creators"" or CRADLE project. Dr. Tibbo is the head of the Standards and Policies Community of Practice for the DataNet Federation Consortium and was also a co-PI with collaborators from the University of Michigan and the University of Toronto on a National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)-funded project to develop standardized metrics for assessing use and user services for primary sources in government settings. Dr. Tibbo was part of the original Library of Congress DigitalPreservation Outreach and Education Train-the-Trainer instructional team in September 2011. She also conducted test ISO 16363 audits of repositories in Europe and the U.S. during the summer of 2011 and is a founding member of the Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Audit and Certification Board (PTAB). She was also a member of the DigCurV project team funded by the European Commission's Leonardo DaVinci Program.