Note: This material has been released earlier than anticipated. Please read the blog post for more details on using this material in its current form, and provide feedback to the developers by using the form at the bottom of this page.
Developer:
Australasia Preserves Digital Preservation Education Working Group: Digital Preservation Essentials Sub-Group
Matthew Burgess, Carey Garvie, Lachlan Glanville, Valerie Love, Gene Melzack, Peter Neish, Rachel Tropea, Jaye Weatherburn
Date developed:
April 2020
Version:
Release candidate, v0.1
Some modules also contain the final release. Note V1 in zip download filename.
Maintenance:
Australasia Preserves Digital Preservation Education Working Group: Digital Preservation Essentials Sub-Group
Get in touch via the Australasia Preserves contact form or use the feedback form at the bottom of this page.
Delivery mode:
Face-to-face or online, guided by an instructor or team of instructors
Summary:
This course equips digital preservation professionals with a range of skills relating to various aspects of receiving, handling, and managing digital content. Participants will:
- Learn about key digital preservation concepts
- Learn how to prepare digital materials for preservation
- Learn how to approach workflow development for digital preservation
- Learn about current tools for working with digital materials.
The course is structured around five core modules:
2. File format identification and characterisation
3. Quick start to the command line
4. Metadata and digital preservation
5. Packaging digital materials for ingest or transfer
Throughout the course, concepts are reinforced by practical activities. Relevant tools and standards are introduced, such as Bagger, DROID, JHOVE, Exiftool, BagIt, and PREMIS.
Skills required:
Participants are not expected to be familiar with the command line or editing configuration files, but they should be prepared to learn how to use them. They are expected to be proficient in the following computer skills:
- Installing and opening software
- Downloading files from the Internet
- Reading and following documentation
- Searching for files using Spotlight (Mac) or Windows Search (Windows)
- Extracting ZIP files
- Setting the default software to open a file with
- Renaming files
- Moving files from one folder to another
- Navigating through different folders
- Looking up what an error message means and trying to fix it
Technical requirements:
Participants require access to a computer running either Linux, MacOS or Windows on which is installed Java 1.6 or later, Bagger, DROID, JHove and ExifTool.
Installations instructions are provided as part of the workshop package.
Course material:
Workshop administration resources
Contents: Module pathways, Proposed timeline for two day workshop, Expression of interest template, Reflection questions and discussion points
Participant resources
Contents: Software setup guide, workshop files
Module: Introduction and framing the challenge
- Introduction to workshop, including housekeeping
- Introducting participants
- Framing the digital preservation challenge
Contents: Training outline, Presentation slides, Activity workbook, Participant handbook
Module: Digital preservation concepts and workflows
- Overview of digital preservation concepts and workflows
Activities: build your own workflow, workflow tool matching (group activities)
Contents: Training outline, Facilitator guide, Presentation slides, Activity workbook, Participant handbook, Scenario cards, Activity cards, Tool cards
Module: File format characterisation
- What is a file format? What do we need to know about files?
- Interrogating files
- File format validation (including demonstration)
- File format identification vs validation
Activities: Using a file format identification tool (DROID)
Contents: Training outline, Presentation slides, Activity workbook, Participant handbook
Module: Quick start to the command line
- What is the command line?
- Information about different terminals/systems
Activities: built-in commands
Contents: Training outline, Presentation slides, Activity workbook, Participant handbook, Command line cheat sheet
Module: Metadata and digital preservation
- What is metadata and why is it important?
- Metadata standards, including preservation metadata (PREMIS)
- How metadata is stored
Activities: read, extract and embed metadata using exiftool
Contents: Training outline, Presentation slides, Activity workbook, Participant handbook
Module: Packaging digital materials for ingest or transfer
- Ingest actions
- BagIt File Packaging Format
- Overview of Bagger
Activities: Create, modify and validate bags
Contents: Training outline, Presentation slides, Activity workbook, Participant handbook
Digital Preservation Essentials by Australasia Preserves https://www.australasiapreserves.org is licenced under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License.
