Risk Assessment in Digital Preservation of e-Science Data and Processes

Risk is a constant in every area and at all levels of any organization, whether in a general context or in a specific activity, project or function. Risk Management comprises a set of coordinated activities to direct and control an organization with regard to risk. Risk Assessment is considered the most important phase of Risk Management, which consists in identifying, analyzing and evaluating risks. Digital preservation’s main concern is to keep information accessible and understandable over a long period of time, through means of digital objects; therefore, it is an area that needs a thorough Risk Management and, especially, a thorough Risk Assessment. In fact, the digital preservation process can be seen as Risk Management activities to protect digital information from inherent threats and vulnerabilities. The digital preservation problem can be even more complex in the context of e-Science, which is progressively being considered as a reference method for experimental scientific discovery, and whose data and processes need to be handled and preserved. As such, this paper analyzes the applicability of Risk Assessment techniques, in the context of digital preservation and, more concretely, in the preservation of e-Science data and processes, in order to develop a Risk Assessment method that can be applied while managing the life-cycle of digital information.