DCC Methodology for Designing and Evaluating Curation and Preservation Experiments V1.1

The purpose of this document is to describe a Digital Curation Centre (DCC) testbed methodology which will serve as a workflow framework for designing experiments to validate the effectiveness of curation and preservation strategies . The methodology is grounded in the following general principles: the methodology must: a) conform to the fundamental standards of a scientific methodology; b) be easy to follow and implement, i.e. accommodate experimenters of all levels of technical expertise; c) be general enough to accommodate future changes and the evolution of ideas in curation and preservation theory and practice; d) be specific enough to provide concrete guidance in the immediate short term; e) be sufficiently flexible and extensible to allow for technological advances and the evolving complexity of available resources. The methodology extends that described within the Planets testbed framework, to fully reflect curation activity from an end user perspective. Previous methodologies have been focused on the testing of tools which take specific action on digital objects, and gauging its performance in terms of whether or not it meets organisational objectives. The organisational objectives are, however, only partially disclosed implic itly through the importance factors which have been attributed to the properties of digital objects, management, and costs by experts in the organisation. The DCC testbed will complement previous work by evaluating usability of digital assets on the basis of end use case validation, to make objectives more transparent and accessible to end users. Use cases will be modelled by identifying what is being used (what), for what purpose (why), in what way (how), when it is being used(when), by whom (who), in what place (where).