Preparing for CoreTrustSeal Accreditation: FAIR Data, Trust Principles and Cultural Heritage

Preparing for CoreTrustSeal Accreditation:
FAIR Data, TRUST Principles & Cultural Heritage
Stuart Macdonald | Digital Archivist
Archives & Engagement | Heritage Directorate
Is Scotland's Historic Environment Data Fit for the Future? DataFest Workshop,
Historic Environment Scotland, Edinburgh – 11 March 2020

Digital Archiving at HES: Data assets received from a variety of sources:
• with physical accessions
• architect firms
• archaeological units
• private donations
• field surveys
• digitisation efforts
• funded-research projects
Primarily via secure file share & CD but also email, ftp, external hard drive, pen drive, even floppy disk.
Digital files include: digital images, documents, CAD drawings, geophysical data, photogrammetry & 3D
models, raw text, spreadsheets, databases, audio and video.
In a range of accepted proprietary and standard formats predefined by digital archive policies and guidance.

Currently c. 44 TB of digital assets
• Back-up cycles and DR
• DataVita / Cloud
Projection of c. 70TB over next 2 years
• Archaeological units *
• Research activities e.g. Rock Art
• Commercial architects
• Data providers e.g. Scottish Govt. LIDAR
• Serendipity e.g. donations
New technologies / processing techniques
• 3D / photogrammetry, moving image materials, other large volume deposits
* surveys of depositors show that they have increasing digital backlogs, which are difficult to quantify
Digital Repository Growth

Upscaling and streamlining operations
• Infrastructure (storage, preservation, security) – DataVita, Preservica
• Develop DR policies in alignment with organisational / directorate / departmental strategic plans
• Streamline workflow (procedures, documentation, internal/external guidance)
• Improve quality control (ingestion, appraisal, cataloguing )
Application for foundational TDR accreditation through CoreTrustSeal

CoreTrustSeal
• CoreTrustSeal (CTS) is an international, community-based, and non-profit organization promoting
sustainable and trustworthy data infrastructures.
• CTS is the outcome of cooperation between DSA and WDS to merge their respective certifications.
• 16 requirements express the core characteristics of a trustworthy digital repository or archive.
• Geographically and disciplinary agnostic.
• CTS offers core accreditation and is a solid foundation for higher-level certification including nestor-
Seal DIN 31644 (34 metrics) and the formal-level TDR certification ISO 16363 (109 metrics).

Importance of Certification
• If digital content is to be shared for re-use it needs to be stored in a reliable, sustainable and
trustworthy archive in-line with TRUST Principles.
• Almost all funders mandate open data policies that call for long-term storage and accessibility of digital
assets in compliance with the FAIR Data Principles
• There are a number of issues that impact upon sustainability, namely: domain, organisational, technical,
financial, legal, etc.
• Certification will help articulate these issues and thus help to ensure both sustainability and continuity
of access.
• Certification will demonstrate to users/managers/funders that an independent authority has evaluated
them and endorsed their trustworthiness.

Organisational and community benefits
• The application process will clarify and articulate digital archival practices
• Help determine strengths and weaknesses
• Help to identify service gaps and areas for improvement
• Promote trust and confidence between the three stakeholders in the data supply chain
• ensure all are working to a common set of standards or principles.
• As new compliant tools, technologies, standards emerge the archive will be better equipped
to respond to changes in data stewardship practicesandworkflows.

• Easier to conduct systematic review of technical / human processes in future.
• Raise the profile of the archive and digital preservation with senior managers.
• Highlights areas of interworking and interaction between archival colleagues for purposes of
streamlining operations.
• Contributes to the wider digital archival community and the data stewardship profession by
openly sharing archival processes, policies and procedures.
• Improves national and international recognition and reputation.

Requirements
• Organisational infrastructure (6 metrics) incl. scope, licences, ethics, governance, expertise.
• Digital object management (8 metrics) incl. integrity, appraisal, storage, preservation, data quality, discovery and
re-use.
• Technology (2 metrics) detailing infrastructure and security.
Compliance
0. Not applicable
1. The repository has not considered this yet
2. The repository has a theoretical concept
3. The repository is in the implementation phase
4. The guideline has been fully implemented in the repository

Certification process
• Self-assessment based on requirements
• Online tool available
• Extended guidance (document and webinar)
• Review of the self-assessment by two external reviewers
• Responses in English
• Assessments to be publicly available
• Assessment fee €1,000
• Feedback within 2 months of submission
• 1 month to input revisions (max. 5 times)
• Renewal every 3 years

Considerations
• Preparation and organisational commitment is key (time/costs).
• Dependent on start-off point (infrastructure, expertise, workflows)
• Statements should not be revised during the assessment even where changes/developments have been made.
• Statements should be succinct (c. 500-800 words).
• Use public facing URLS for supporting documentation where possible
• Alignment with any physical archive accreditation
• Evidence that is conﬁdential, commercially sensitive or contains security risks can be submitted to the reviewer offline
and will be judged equally

In addition to certification next-generation digital archiving will be influenced by two complementary
codes of practice that attend to service infrastructure (1) and digital assets (2) respectively.
TRUST and FAIR Data Principles
1. TRUST Principles
If digital content is to be FAIR and shared for re-use it needs to be stored in a reliable, sustainable
and trustworthy archive in-line with TRUST* Principles.
• a set of principles that define the criteria for a digital repository to be considered trustworthy
• the repository must have transparent policies, organizational resources, and personnel with the
expertise to provide sustainable operations and secure technologies for their communities.
* Transparency (T), responsibility (R), user community (U), sustainability (S) and technology (T)

2. FAIR Data Principles
Many funders and organisations mandate open data policies that call for long-term storage and accessibility of digital assets
in compliance with the FAIR Data Principles
• grounded in conventional scholarly communication and reporting of data generated as part of the research process BUT
applicable to Cultural Heritage Sector
• a set of guiding principles established to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable with emphasis on
machine-actionability

In practical terms what does this mean for digital archives in the cultural
heritage sector?
• Cultural Heritage organisations are experienced at providing finding aids and access to
catalogued objects for their designated community of users
• However, expertise, capacity, technical support, digital object complexity and contingencies
notwithstanding
• A main dependency for interoperation and subsequent re-use resides with the existing
repository platform and development capability in terms of what it can offer (in-house
development versus out-of-the box solutions)

Questions about interoperation capability could include:
• What metadata standards (discovery, technical, preservation) are in use?
e.g. Dublin-Core, MARC, MODS, METS, ISAD-G, EAD, INSPIRE
• Are harvesting protocols supported (OAI-PMH, OAI-ORE)
• Does the platform mint persistent identifiers (DOIs, ORCID) used to identify and also
link to objects, people etc?
• Does the repository store objects in recommended/preferred preservation formats?
• What are the licensing frameworks are supported (CC, Copyright agreements, ODC)?
• Is provenance captured and assured?

Once some of these questions have been answered interoperation and re-use can
be progressed for tactical deployment
Approaches might include:
• Map existing metadata schema (e.g. ISAD-G) to web-agnostic Qualified Dublin Core (DC + extended fields)
and/or Encoded Archival Description (EAD)
• Explore mapping to other interoperable standards e.g. JSON, PREMIS, OAI-PMH, DataCite, Europeana Data
Model
• Openly licence metadata (CC-0)

Once Metadata is ‘interoperable’ with other systems this facilitates:
• Harvesting and aggregation by third-parties
• Potential for ‘productivisation’
• Opportunity to slice and dice via APIs
• ‘Mashing at the macro-level’
• Machine as user
• Future proofing of Digital Archive
• portability
• Step towards FAIR compliance
• Interoperations and re-use

Opportunities
As Cultural heritage archives transition from physical to digital surrogate to born digital cultural artifacts the guiding
principles of FAIR data offer a number of opportunities:
• Increase potential for reaching new audiences (at web-scale)
• Drive new users to physical and digital artefacts (objects, catalogues, buildings)
• Fosters new engagement and partnership opportunities
• Serendipitous and cross-disciplinary discovery
• Potential link to other collections in the cultural heritage sector
• Make digital assets available for reuse within research, education and the creative industries.
• Seed the Open Data Commons
• Stimulate outreach opportunities
All of which resonate with the recent announcement of the £18.9 million AHRC-ledTowards a National Collection
Programme .

THANKS
References
i. CoreTrustSeal - https://www.coretrustseal.org/
ii. TRUST Principles for Digital Repositories - https://tinyurl.com/qso26rd
iii. FAIR data principles - https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples
iv. Implementing FAIR Data principles: The Role of Libraries, LIBER, 2017 - https://libereurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/LIBER-FAIR-
Data.pdf
v. AHRC-funded Towards a National Collection - https://www.ukri.org/funding/funding-opportunities/towards-a-national-collection-
opening-uk-heritage-to-the-world-pre-call-announcement/
vi. FAIR Principles for Library, Archive and Museum Collections: A proposal for standards for reusable collections -
https://journal.code4lib.org/articles/13427
vii. Sustainable and FAIR Data Sharing in the Humanities: ALLEA Report, February 2020 - https://allea.org/portfolio-item/sustainable-and-
fair-data-sharing-in-the-humanities/

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