Well managed and good quality metadata plays a vital role in long-term data curation by capturing information necessary for the efficient functioning of different curation operations, such as data preservation and provenance tracking. For data preservation in particular, metadata can be used to record information required to reconstruct or at least understand the reconstruction process for digital resources on future technological platform. However, without curation, metadata itself may deteriorate in terms of its quality and integrity over time. Therefore, a digital curation process needs to incorporate the curation of metadata along with that of data in order to ensure the accurate description of data over the long-term. Unfortunately, no comprehensive method for effective curation of metadata for long periods of time is known to exist at present. Even the Reference Model for Open Archival Information System (OAIS), despite being the most comprehensive and widely adopted framework for long-term data preservation, does not address the requirements of long-term metadata curation in a comprehensive and unambiguous manner. This thesis presents an approach that aims to fill the void for an efficient strategy for curating digital metadata over the long-term. The approach involves the use of a "Metadata Curation Record" and a "Metadata Curation Model". The former is a curarion-aware metadata specification that captures additional statements about both data objects and associated metadata to aid long-term digital curation, while the latter is a specialised version of the "Data Management" module of the OAIS reference model, dedicated to the purpose of long-term metadata curation. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated by a number of case studies and a web services based prototype system for metadata curation. In addition, this thesis outlines the main requirements of long-term metadata curation and presents an indepth assessment of the current state of play.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:507015 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Shaon, Arif Bin Siraj |
| Publisher | University of Reading |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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