[Esip-dds] A data life cycle model

[Joe Hourcle]

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013, Ramdeen, Sarah wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
>
> I am a bit behind in my emails but I wanted to add some comments about 
> the lifecycle model.  Echoing Erin's comment, I have always preferred 
> the DCC mode (http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/curation-lifecycle-model) 
> because of the different loops represented in the diagram, but I think 
> that is merely because it is an easy to understand visual and not 
> because it is a better model!  That said, there are a few things I think 
> the proposed model is missing.  These are just suggestions of course - 
> things I thought about after a first pass of looking at the current 
> model.

I'm just getting caught up as well, as I only joined the list the other 
day.

It's going to take me a while to remember all of the various models that 
I've seen over the years, but I agree -- I think the straight line of 
processes isn't as accurate of a representations as some of the ones that 
suggest that it's an iterative process. (media refreshes, repackaging as 
standards change, evaluate if it should be discarded*)

There was also a proposed extension to the DCC model to insert a couple of 
more items ('User Experience' and 'Knowledge Enhancement'):

 	http://www.ijdc.net/index.php/ijdc/article/view/69

I don't know that they're necessary, as I view 'knowledge enhancement' as 
part of 'Curation', and UX as something off to




> 1) In the data life cycle model section there is not a step for 
> appraisal or collection development.  This is implied with collect I 
> guess but there are usually some decisions made about what should be 
> part of a collection and not everything collected is kept.  This is 
> different than deciding that something is no longer of value - but that 
> assessment once something is donated or initially collected to determine 
> if it belongs as a permanent part of the collection.

I'd say that the process is a little different than your standard 
collections development -- right now, we're prepping for a senior review 
-- if we can't show that the material's still of value to the community, 
then it gets transfered to an archive with a lower cost of storage.  I 
could see that in some cases, an archive might maintain different classes 
of storage, and move stuff from online to nearline or offline / offsite.

When we're dealing with ingest, it might be that we determine that 
something that was given to us isn't actually appropriate for the 
community that we serve, and we might try to transfer it to some other 
group.

And both of these happen at levels above me right now.  (although, I've 
been warned that next year, we have to look into our archive dealing with 
long-term preservation).



> 2) In this same section it does not implicitly discuss access and use 
> either.  Again, probably implied with discover, but I think that being 
> able to discover is slightly different than being able to gain 
> access/permissions or properly use the materials as well.

Also reminded me -- back in 2007, there was a workshop headed up by the 
OAIS authors called 'Science Archives in the 21st Century'

 	http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/conf/archive21st/

There was a pretty big rift between the folks who looked at archiving as 
being something for the future, vs. those who were more concerned about 
serving people today.  (I don't want to put words into people's mouths, so 
I won't say who I think said it, but there was a comment at the workshop
  that if we couldn't make sense of the data today, what good was it to 
store it for someone else to figure out in the future)

... um ... I'm going to stop commenting, as the telecon's in an hour ...

... but I agree with Sarah on the other two.

-Joe