By tradition, archival sciences has emerged in a context with defined information processes, with explicit information producers and custodians to which consumers make requests for the information. In this process, the archival science has developed methods and strategies to preserve authentic and reliable records and by that providing trustworthy information. In an online society, people are using the internet to get information for different purposes. Even though there is no legal obligation to guarantee the authenticity, it is of societal importance that the end users get trustworthy information. In this online context, open data is a trend that is growing fast over the world and it is interesting because its conditions raises many questions regarding authenticity. Since open data is free to reuse, link and combine with other information, and it is preferably in primary format it raises questions about how to maintain the integrity and identity of the information, which is the constituents of authenticity as it is used in this work. The idea in this essay is to discuss challenges with maintaining the authenticity for open data and also identify possible measures to promote authentic open data information on the web, so that the end users get the possibilities to assess its trustworthiness and fit for use. The essay is a qualitative text analyses, with the theoretical base in the InterPARES project results. Open Government Working groups 8 principles and Open Knowledge Foundations definition is discussed, as is also the discussion from other disciplines about provenance on the web, and ideas from digital records forensic. The results indicate that there are great challenges to maintain the authenticity of open data but there are also some solutions. Recorded provenance and traceability are key factors to enable the evaluation of the authenticity. But first the concept authenticity has to be interpreted in a wider sense. There is a need to maintain the authenticity of the parts, the data, in the information. Because the information is used in parts and if the new information created from it will be reliable, it need accurate data with established identity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:miun-18447 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Engvall, Tove |
| Publisher | Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för informationsteknologi och medier |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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