The transition survival challenge can only be solved by proper maintenance procedures for records and their storage. Since any technology (and organizations, processes etc.) in use at the time of record creation will be obsolete long before the expiry of the lifetime of the record, and one cannot predict the nature of the technology (organizations, processes etc.) that will constitute the replacement (say, 15 years from now), specifications must be sufficiently independent of technology. At the same time, specifications must be supported by existing technology. Note that in particular conversion and versioning of context information (metadata etc.) is a fairly new research area where the partners of LongRec are in a good position to contribute. LongRec will address all aspects listed above, with particular focus on formats, organizational issues, and processes. Research in records transition survival will partly be carried out by one Ph.D. student localised at NTNU.

When committing to digital collaboration it is a prerequisite that semantics of documents used as input and output to business processes are agreed. This particularly applies for processes where documents are exchanged between systems. However, semantics are important also for processes where documents are exchanged digitally between human users. Semantic information is partly stored in the records themselves and partly as separate objects in an archive (typical for information common to many records). Additionally, referral may be made to information maintained by external parties. Examples of distributed information sources in Norway are www.lovdata.no (laws and regulations), Enhetsregisteret (public company registry), and sources of relevant metadata (e.g. Oppgaveregisteret for reporting to the public sector). Thus, one may need to LongRec rely on the continued support and trustworthiness of external parties. Not all contexts are storable (e.g. a person’s explanation of why the answer to a particular question is as indicated), and a document and its context may over time make less sense due to changes in terminology and advances in knowledge in the field of the document. The inevitable reduction in semantic value will imply decreased trustworthiness and usefulness of the document. Updates to the document may mitigate this. Methodologies for knowledge engineering have been around for some years (UML was defined in the mid nineties; OWL is a few years old). In a long term view, the methodologies used for describing semantics are immature and the best of breed are rapidly changing. On this background the following research challenges are important for the semantic aspects of LongRec:

As a rule, it is inevitable that the evidential value decreases over time. Any operation on a document, such as format conversion, implies a risk and involves actors and components that must be trusted. LongRec will develop theory and methods to as far as possible preserve evidential value over time, and to express, measure, and verify evidential value. As all security related work, analysis of threats, risks and vulnerabilities must be applied. A general risk analysis may be augmented by specific analysis related to case studies. Two particular topics that will be addressed are signatures and IPR (Intellectual Property Rights). Digital signature as a mechanism for integrity and accountability receives particular attention due to legal and security requirements. As a digital signature binds also to the formats used, a digital signature by necessity cannot survive format conversion. Long-term aspects of digital signatures will be studiedby LongRec, including methods to cope with removal of signatures without too much loss of evidential value (use of neutral actors and their services may be necessary). IPR issues, in a broad sense, can if not properly addressed impede long-term storage and access activities. Ownership and IPR necessarily change over time, must comply with relevant laws and regulations, and dictate management of authorizations given to other actors. IPR can be considered as parts of the context information of a record. Both customary access management solutions, and a DRM (Digital Rights Management) approach will be studied by LongRec.

Research in preservation of evidential value will partly be carried out by one Ph.D. student inaugurated at NTNU but hosted by NR.

LongRec will primarily address issues raised by a changing and evolving environment (with respect to the actors) during the exploratory phase of the project. Deep research in this area will require other competence and possibly other partners, such as experts in law, economics, society, culture, and politics. However, existing issues in areas such as compliance requirements will be explored by LongRec. Since legal, social and cultural framework must be viewed in an international perspective, the partners of LongRec will consider an application for a project under the 7th Research Framework Programme of the EU particularly addressing research challenge 5.