Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts

Access Levels Scheme

Access Levels Scheme is a part of the Archive Access Plan and provides an overview of “who has access to what, and how” in the form of a table. Considering that different modes of access might need to be provided for different user groups, to material with varying permitted level of access, an Access Levels Scheme helps avoid confusion and errors.

Active and Passive Approach

A passive access approach would be an archive created with the main goal of long-term preservation of the material for historical, legal, or other reasons. However, most CSOs working with human rights violations archives will likely be taking the other route of an active approach to providing access, which is focused on facilitating and providing as wide access as possible to its users.

Active Maintenance

Active Maintenance of a digital archive is necessary both to keep the digital archive operational and also to ensure the long-term preservation, authenticity, and access to its digital content. If the format of the digital files becomes obsolete, or if the storage media fails or backup software is outdated and flawed, the archival digital content may be compromised, damaged, or lost altogether, along with all the work put into building and developing the digital archive. Active maintenance of a digital archive requires a systematic approach and regular performance of a set of actions that include monitoring and migration.

Analogue Document

Analogue document refers to any physical or tangible record, such as paper files, photographs, or audio tapes, that exists in a non-digital form. "The representation of an object or physical process through the use of continuously variable electronic signals or mechanical patterns. In contrast to a digitally-encoded representation of an object or physical process, an analogue representation resembles the original."

Antivirus

Antivirus is software designed to detect, prevent, and remove malicious software threats from computer systems.

Archival Fonds

Archival Fonds are a collection of related records or documents created or collected and maintained by an individual or organization. "Archival materials are organized into separate groupings based on provenance - that is, the person, family or organization that created and / or accumulated the records in the course of that creator's activities and functions. These groupings are called fonds. Fonds may include records in any format - textual records, sound recordings, photographs, and other graphics; moving images (film, video); architectural drawings, databases; and in any medium - paper, electronic, microform". The organization of materials into categories according to a scheme that identifies, distinguishes, and relates the categories.

Archival rules

Archival rules are the guidelines or principles governing the management, preservation, and access to archival materials.

Archival structure table

An archival structure table is a hierarchical representation of the organization and arrangement of archival materials within a collection or archive.

Archival Techniques

Archival Techniques comprise methodologies and practices used for preserving, organizing, and accessing archival materials.

Archive

An archive is a repository or collection of historical documents or records, often containing primary sources. "They are contemporary records created by individuals and organizations as they go about their business and therefore provide a direct window on past events. They can come in a wide range of formats, including written, photographic, moving image, sound, digital, and analog. Archives are held by public and private institutions and individuals around the world".

Archive Access Plan

Archive Access Plan guides both the decision-making and implementation related to access to the archival material. It provides a balance between the goal of assuring as wide an access to an archive as possible and the responsibility to safeguard data and adhere to legal and ethical norms regarding data privacy, sensitivity, confidentiality, and copyrights. A well-considered and clear Archive Access Plan will help achieve that balance.

Born-digital

Born-digital, content or data that originates in digital form without ever existing in a physical format.

Chain of custody

Chain of custody, documentation of the chronological custody history, control, transfer, and analysis of physical or digital evidence.

Collection

The most generic groups of material are often referred to as “collections,” or in strictly archival terms “fonds.” Each collection is divided into “series,” which can contain individual items as well as “subseries” and “folders” (sometimes also referred to as “files”), which are smaller, subordinated units of structure that then also contain individual items

Data Documentation

Data Documentation provides information about the context of our data, our digital archival content, often in a textual or other human-readable form. Data documentation supplements metadata and provides information that enables others to use the archival content. Given that data documentation is also “data about data,” it could also be seen as a specific type of metadata—one that provides context and is recorded in a human-friendly format.

Data Protection

Whether it relates to private, sensitive, confidential, or copyrighted data, Data Protection is the essence of our archive’s security planning. There are three main instruments, or actions an archive can take to protect its data: access control and management, redaction, and encryption.

Data Security

Data security measures are implemented to protect digital data from unauthorized access, alteration, or destruction.

Description of Archival Material

Description of Archival Material enables the archive’s proper preservation and guides future users by providing important contextual information. The content of an archive needs to be described in a way that will allow anyone to search for, locate, and access items in the collection, thereby enabling connections to be established between items, even from different groups. Put, without description, an archive would be more like simple storage in which it would eventually become impossible to find or manage content. "The process of capturing, analyzing, organizing, and recording information that serves to identify, manage, locate, and explain the holdings of archives and manuscript repositories and the contexts and records systems which produced them."

Digital Archive Security Plan

Digital Archive Security Plan guides the devising of security procedures and their implementation. Such a plan should list and describe security-related obligations of the archive based on the material it contains, security-related functions the archive needs to perform, security-related actions that will be taken to ensure the functions are properly performed, and tools and technologies needed for its implementation.

Digital Archives

Digital Archives are archives that contain material in a digital form—including both born-digital items and digitized versions of originally physical material—stored on digital media and managed through digital tools. Just as in physical archives, the material in digital archives is organized, described, arranged, stored, preserved, safeguarded, and made accessible to users.

Digital Archiving

Digital Archiving is the process of creating, managing, and developing digital archives.

Digital Archiving Life Cycle Model

Digital Archiving Life Cycle Model reflects the key characteristic of digital archiving, its circular and continual character, a cyclical process in which stages follow one after the other continuously, without an end point. The Life Cycle Model also draws attention to the need for taking actions and actively managing a digital archive throughout its life cycle. At the same time, the Model clearly presents the wide scope of responsibilities involved in the digital archiving process. Finally, the Life Cycle Model makes clear that decisions and actions in each phase affect what and how can be done in each subsequent stage and any new iteration of the process. The Digital Archiving Life Cycle Model applied in this manual is developed to tailor to the specific needs and challenges of CSOs. It reflects some of the elements of the OAIS Reference model  and partly the structure of the DCC Curation Life Cycle Model. The OAIS Model is the most widely used model for digital archiving, while the DCC Life Cycle Model includes many of the considerations that also affect CSOs engaged in digital archiving.

Digital Archiving System

Digital Archiving System is a system of software and hardware components that consists of databases, software tools that manage databases, and storage media; it is the technological infrastructure of a digital archive. It defines the scope and limit of the archive’s functions and is instrumental in achieving its aim and goals. The main purpose of digital archiving is to ensure that the invaluable content we are preserving remains unchanged and accessible long into the future through an adequate and sustainable technological framework for the digital archive.

Digital Archiving Techniques

Digital Archiving Techniques are methods and strategies employed to preserve digital information over time, ensuring its accessibility and integrity.

Digital Copy

Digital Copy is a reproduction or duplicate of a digital file or document, typically created for backup or distribution purposes. An electronic record is "Information or data that has been captured and fixed for storage and manipulation in an automated system and that requires the use of the system to render it intelligible by a person."

Digital File Name

Digital File Name of a digital archival item serves the very important role of descriptor of that particular item, which should contain information that allows us to identify what the item is and what it contains so we can locate it in the archive and properly manage and preserve it.

Digital Forensics

Digital Forensics in digital archiving refers to a set of software and application-based techniques that allow us to access and investigate digital archival material in relation to its authenticity, accountability, and accessibility. This is especially relevant for older data storage formats or when working with digital material of unclear origin and features, especially when a history of the material and “chain of custody” have not been established. Digital forensics allow us to, for example, extract relevant metadata, access content archived in outdated digital formats, establish a chain of custody, detect data manipulation and forgery, and identify issues with data privacy.

Digital Surrogates

Digital Surrogates are digital copies of physical archival items that are processed, preserved, and made accessible as digital archival objects. Digital surrogates can originate from different types of physical objects—documents, maps, video, artifacts, etc.—and can be stored in different digital formats.

Digitization

Digitization is a process of creating digital copies, or “surrogates” of original physical items. These digital copies are then processed as digital archival objects. Different types of physical objects can be digitized and then stored on a variety of media. They can, for example, include text, photographs, drawings, maps, video, audio, and other types of content, stored on paper, audio cassettes, VHS tapes, or any other physical or analogue storage media. The digital copies  could also include objects such as pieces of clothing, banners, personal belongings, etc. The type of material that needs to be digitized will determine the procedures, technologies, digital formats, and other elements of any concrete digitization process.

Digitization Workflow

Digitization Workflow is a plan or scheme that should include all digitization actions and operations—starting with review and preparation of physical items and workspace to the completion of the workflow through storing the created digital surrogates and making backup copies. Each digitization project will have its unique workflow, its specific sequence of actions and operations. Although specific actions and their sequences are tailored to each concrete project, we can identify the key elements required in any digitization workflow: preparation, process scheduling, digitization, quality control, post-processing, and storing and backup.

Disaster Recovery Plan

Disaster Recovery Plan details how our data will be recovered or replaced in case of any major natural or human-caused failure, damage, theft, or malicious attack on our digital archival content or system. It is based on the existing backup arrangements that define the number of backup copies, their geographic location, and type of storage media used. The Disaster Recovery plan should provide instructions on which of our backup copies should be used in which disaster type circumstances and by which technological means to replace and recover the data.

Events

Events are significant occurrences or incidents recorded as part of archival materials.

External access

External access is permission or authorization granted to individuals or entities outside an organization to access its digital resources or archives.

Fixity

Fixity is a crucial element in long-term preservation of files, as well as in maintaining their integrity, authenticity and usability, refers to a state of being unchanged or permanent. In essence, fixity allows us to determine whether a file has changed over time or been altered or corrupted, and to track and record any such changes.

Formats

Formats: File types or structures used to encode and store digital information, such as PDF, JPEG, or MP3. "Format is commonly used to describe certain standard sizes of photographs, including cartes-de-visite, cabinet cards, stereographs, and many numerical designation for film sizes, and this sense appears in The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography (1965).

General Plan

General Plan of a digital archive is the first and crucial step in the process of its development. It lays out the reason and the method for the archive’s development by providing it with Guiding Principles as well as key decisions regarding the content, access, and major organizational, technological, and resource-related issues. The widely scoped, detailed, and advanced planning contained in the General Plan will help the organization navigate a wide array of challenges that need to be met in the later stages of the process of digital archive creation.

Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles of a digital archive summarize the reasoning behind its development. They state why an archive is needed, who will be using it and how, and what the expected benefits of its creation and development are. The Guiding Principles also address the required resources and technologies, legal and security-related responsibilities, and organizational matters.

Human rights organizations

Human rights organizations: Non-governmental organizations dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights worldwide.

Human rights violations

Human rights violations: Actions or practices that infringe upon the rights and dignity of individuals as recognized by international human rights standards.

Identification Inventory

Identification Inventory is the initial list of item groups we can identify in the material we wish to digitally archive. It is a table that lists the identified item groups and includes information about their type, format, size, amount, condition, location, and storage space or storage media. The Identification Inventory provides us with a clear overview of what source material we have, in what quantity, and in which shapes and forms.

Indexing

Indexing: The process of creating searchable access points or metadata for archival materials to facilitate retrieval and discovery.

Ingest

Ingest is the process of transferring digital items into the digital archive, during which the data, its metadata, and data documentation are stored and mutually linked within the Digital Archiving System. A set of preservation actions needs to be applied to the digital content in preparation for ingest, as well as after it has been finished. This includes scanning the digital files and backup copies with antivirus software and checking each file’s fixity, validity, and quality.

Institutional knowledge

Institutional knowledge: Collective expertise, experience, and information unique to an organization or institution.

Integrity

Integrity: The quality of data being complete, accurate, and unaltered, ensuring its trustworthiness and reliability.

Internet Infrastructure

Internet Infrastructure: The underlying physical and virtual components that enable the functioning of the internet, including hardware, software, protocols, and standards.

Inventory

Inventory: A detailed list or record of items or assets within a collection, archive, or organization.

Item

Item: An individual unit or document within an archival collection, often cataloged and managed separately.

Levels of protection

Different tiers or degrees of security measures implemented to safeguard digital assets or information..

Life cycle

The stages through which digital or physical records pass from creation or receipt to disposal or preservation.

Long-term preservation

Strategies and techniques for ensuring the ongoing accessibility and usability of digital assets over extended periods.

Maintenance Plan

Maintenance Plan is centered around the two main sets of maintenance actions. It lists, describes, and schedules the execution of maintenance monitoring and migration activities. The specific elements of the Maintenance Plan, such as time periods for regular checkups or concrete procedures, are defined in line with the needs of a given archive.

Master Files

Master Files are the best-quality files we produce through digitization and are intended to be preserved long term without loss of any essential features. The number of master files we will create will depend on the content of the originals and the planned uses of the digital surrogate. In addition to master files, we can also produce a number of secondary files, often called “access” or “service” files. These files are created from the master file and optimized for the intended use (e.g., for web or for research).

Medium Storage

Physical or digital storage media is used to store and preserve data or information. In computers, a storage medium is a physical device that receives and retains electronic data for applications and users and makes the data available for retrieval. The storage medium might be inside a computer or other device or attached to a system externally, either directly or over a network. The plural form of this term is storage media."

Metadata

Descriptive information or tags associated with digital files or records, providing context, structure, and searchability. Metadata refers to the descriptions of archival items. It is essential that relevant metadata is collected and attached to the digital archival items and stored in a structured form suitable for software processing. Without its attached metadata, digital archival material becomes meaningless and unusable, as we might be unable to find or identify it, understand what it is, its context, history, creator, or where it belongs in the archive. Digital archival items allow for a range of metadata to be collected, such as technical specifications of an archival digital file or information about its creation or any further digital action taken on it.

Migration of Data, Software, and Storage Media

Migration of Data, Software, and Storage Media is an essential component of active maintenance of a digital archive, as it allows us to preserve our archival data by migrating it to new formats, software, or storage media. Migration needs to be performed timely, in a systematic and carefully planned way, following clear rules and including the set of preservation actions—checkups of fixity, validity, and quality assurance—as a mandatory step both before and after the actual transfer of files.

Monitoring

Monitoring the digital archive software and improving it when needed ensures that it continues to meet our requirements and avoids it becoming obsolete. However, if the monitoring shows that a software can no longer be adapted or that it is losing its support community, we will need to find a new appropriate software solution and migrate to it. Monitoring and Preservation of archival data are actions that need to be performed on the digital archival data in the maintenance phase. This is in essence a continuation of the work done as part of the preparation of the digital material for ingest, including the backup of data, checkups of file formats, validity, fixity, and quality assurance. Monitoring and preservation actions must be planned and performed regularly to check and amend any irregularities or errors. Monitoring Storage Media is necessary to timely detect any errors or damage and prevent it from becoming obsolete or outdated. Over time, storage media can become unstable and unreliable and cause data corruption or loss. A rule of thumb for a safe preservation practice is for storage media to have a short life cycle, sometimes estimated at only three to five years. This means that after this period, we will need to find and obtain a new storage media and migrate our data to it.

Non-structured material

Digital content or data lacking a predefined organizational or hierarchical format.

Open-source

Software or technology whose source code is freely available for modification, enhancement, and distribution by the community.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Software

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software allows for the creation of fully searchable documents from originally non-searchable image files. In essence, by running an OCR software on our scanned image of a document, we add a layer of text onto that image file so other software can read it, which makes the document fully searchable. This is essential for making human rights archives more accessible and visible, which is often a key purpose of their digitization.

Organization

Organization of material for archiving involves introducing a certain logical and hierarchical order into it and thereby devising its structure. This is done on the level of item groups identified through the Inventory, using the organization’s knowledge and understanding of the material.

Outreach Strategy

Outreach Strategy of a digital archive describes its outreach goals and beneficiaries and a plan of activities. It can help achieve the activism goals of the archive—be it to inform, educate, raise awareness, or to seek truth, accountability or reparations—and also to make them more feasible and attainable. An archive with a bigger presence and impact in the community, with wider visibility and credibility, will be more likely to engage a range of actors necessary for its long-term sustainability. This includes expert staff, users, CSOs, and other partners, donors, teachers, students, universities, supporters, mentors, journalists, and others who can and need to contribute to a digital archive’s successful creation, maintenance, and development.

Outsourcing

Contracting external service providers or organizations to perform specific tasks or functions, often to reduce costs or access specialized expertise.

Physical archive

A repository or storage facility for physical records, documents, or artifacts.

Planning

The process of developing strategies, goals, and objectives for managing, preserving, and accessing archival materials.

Privacy Regulations

Legal frameworks or standards govern personal information collection, use, and protection.

Public Access

Individuals or groups can view, retrieve, or use archival materials without restrictions.

Quality standards

Criteria or benchmarks used to assess and ensure the accuracy, reliability, and usability of archival materials.

Records

Documents, files, or data created, received, or maintained as evidence of an organization's activities or transactions.

Resourcing and Fundraising Plan

Resourcing and Fundraising Plan should contain a thorough assessment of the overall resource needs related to the development of the digital archive, broken down by phases and activities. This should include an analysis of the more immediate short- and medium-term needs in developing the digital archive (i.e., which resources need to be obtained and within which time frame). Additional assessment should then be made of the resources the organization already has or can reasonably easily acquire. Based on these assessments, a realistic (time- and resources-wise) feasible plan should be made for securing the necessary resources and funds for developing a digital archive, both in terms of immediate steps and in the long term.

Searchable, Search Engine

Capable of being searched or indexed to facilitate retrieval of relevant information, often through the use of specialized software tools.

Secondary files

Additional or supplementary documents or records related to primary materials within an archival collection.

Security and safety

Measures taken to protect archival materials from physical damage, theft, or loss.

Selection and Prioritization

Selection and Prioritization are archival procedures in which we make decisions on which groups of source materials should be preserved and for how long, and what the order of their preservation should be.

Selection process

The methodological approach to choosing which materials to include or exclude from an archival collection based on predetermined criteria or guidelines.

Selection Report

Documentation outlining the rationale and criteria used for selecting materials for inclusion in an archival collection.

Server-based storage

Storing digital data or information on remote servers accessed via a network, typically the internet.

Size

The physical or digital dimensions or capacity of archival materials, often measured in bytes, pages, or storage units.

Software

Programs or applications designed to perform specific tasks or functions on a computer or digital device.

Storage

The act or process of retaining or keeping digital or physical records, documents, or data for future use or reference.

Storage media

Physical devices or mediums used to store and preserve digital information, such as hard drives, flash drives, or optical discs.

Subgroup

A subset or division within an archival collection, often organized based on thematic or administrative criteria.

System Protection

System Protection is the first function of data security for a digital archive, because in order to protect the content—the data—we must first safeguard its repository. System protection includes safeguarding against system failures as well as protecting the Digital Archiving System from malicious acts of corruption or deletion.

Table of the Archive's Structure

Table of the Archive's Structure is an advanced version of the identification Inventory, which reflects a hierarchical arrangement of series and collections of item groups. In the table of the archive's structure, the main units of analysis—described in terms of their size, format, amount, etc.—are not only individual item groups but also series and collections of these item groups, arranged in a hierarchical way. The table of the archive's structure hence contains information about our material, metadata (on the archive’s structure, grouping of files in collections, series, subseries, and folders), and additional descriptive and technical metadata that we selected to add into it. It is a necessary tool that allows proper archival processing of the source material and the archive’s organization and management.

Technological development

Advances and innovations in technology that impact the management, preservation, and access of archival materials.

Type of material

The nature or form of archival materials, such as textual documents, photographs, audio recordings, or video footage.

Unique identification number

A distinct alphanumeric code or identifier is assigned to archival materials for tracking, retrieval, and management purposes.

Users

Individuals or groups who access, utilize, or interact with archival materials for research, educational, or informational purposes.

Validation

Validation of digital archival files is the process of establishing whether they are what we think they are. Through file validation, we check whether the format of a file is proper and correct—whether it is valid. In this way, we determine whether a file conforms to the specific file format specification or standards a specific file format such as .jpg, .doc., or TIFF must follow.