SHAMAN D14.4 : Report on demonstration and evaluation activity in the domain of e-science

Abstract

1. This deliverable reports on the demonstration and evaluation of ISP3, which was designed to demonstrate the potential of the SHAMAN framework for digital preservation in the context of e-science institutions and for the research and development community.2. The demonstration process was carried out by means of presentations of the training material to the scientists from LNEC and LIP in Lisbon, Portugal. The audiences for the demonstrations consisted of scientists working with different data and IT support staff.3. The evaluation is based on the reports of focus groups held with two groups of scientists, together with structured data from self-completed questionnaires, administered on the same occasions.4. The SHAMAN 'consciousness raising' event appears to have had useful consequences. In both institutions it appeared to fulfil the aim of drawing attention to the problems of digital preservation and to the role of the SHAMAN framework in finding answers to the problems. To a degree, the participants were already sympathetic to the ideas, since they were working in situations that daily brought their attention to the need for preservation policies. However, the discussions were also useful in extending the concept of digital preservation beyond the existing perceptions within the SHAMAN teams. In particular, the notion of the 'digital object' needs to be expanded to include not only digitized physical objects such as documents and images, but also 'born digital' phenomena such as data streams, software programs and analytical results of experiments. ; Sponsorship : EU: 7th framework programme