This presentation, the first of six parts on the practical analysis of significant properties of digital objects, introduces the concepts. The topic concerns the characteristics of digital objects that must be preserved over time in order to ensure the continued accessibility, usability, and meaning of the objects. The presentation was given as part of module 3 of a 5-module course on digital preservation tools for repository managers, presented by the JISC KeepIt project. For more on this and other presentations in this course look for the tag 'KeepIt course' in the project blog http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/keepit/