Christopher (Cal) Lee

Doctoral Candidate
School of Information, University of Michigan

“Defining Digital Preservation Work:
A Case Study in Standards Development"

Wednesday, March 16, 2005
1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Room 501, IS Building

Abstract: I will report on a study of the development of the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS), which began as a standard to support repositories of "digital information obtained from observations of the terrestrial and space environments." The process quickly opened up, however, to include participants from a diverse set of institutions and professions. The standard served as a locus of both the social definition of a new area of work and technical definition of a formal standard to describe and coordinate that work. My research addresses how and why this transformation in the scope of the standard occurred. My case study design is supported by multiple methods including document analysis, social network analysis and interviews.

Preliminary findings address two main themes: the development process and the content of the standard itself. The process was characterized by punctuated patterns of participation and document revision, with a steady stream of work by a core team and a small set of larger meetings devoted to wider input and discussion. The extent of changes to the document became smaller over time, though there were some noteworthy changes late in the process. I have also found that the development was characterized by enrollment of several forms of resources - skills and expertise, social networks, codified knowledge, and structures/routines. Another set of findings relate to the opportunities and challenges associated with standardization in an emerging area of work involving a heterogeneous set of actors.