Annotation refers broadly to the process of adding or making notes on or upon something. The role of annotation in scientific and scholarly work is especially important because the description or interpretation from trusted sources may inform further interpretation or research. Different communities want to annotate different types of digital data (structured text, images, geospatial data, audio, video), but big questions exist in terms of determining where and how to "attach" annotations of various types to base data, and how to let others search (query), view, or track annotations.

A general study is being conducted of how annotation is being used in scientific data, and what technology is being developed to support it. A prototype system, MONDRIAN, has been developed for the annotation of relational data. This is currently being tested. In addition, using BioDAS [external] concepts of a Distributed Annotation System (DAS) from the bioinformatics community, the AstroDAS project aims to help researchers match sky objects across distributed astronomy catalogues.

• Annotation in Scientific Data: a Scoping Report (Draft) [PDF, 58KB]
• Annotation Management of Scientific Databases [external]
• AstroDAS: Annotating sky objects over distributed astronomy catalogues [external]

Techniques have been developed to enable efficient archiving of databases, such as genome databases that evolve rapidly as biological research moves forward. The challenge is to preserve the scientific record by recording all past states of the data. We are currently investigating the possibility of building, for long-term preservation, a distributed archive. We are also pursuing the implementation of a pilot system to help create representation information for long-term data preservation.

• Archiving scientific data [external]

There are a number of legal issues of relevance to digital curation of which the impact of intellectual property rights is arguably the most significant. We are investigating the operation of copyright and the database right and their implications for those involved in curation activity. In particular we have looked at the impact of the database right framework on those engaged in scientific research. We are also involved in the GRADE project [external] which aims to investigate and report on the technical and cultural issues surrounding the reuse of geospatial data within the JISC IE in the context of media-centric, informal and institutional repositories. We are involved in the legal work package of that project which aims to gain an understanding of the legal rights issues that will arise in a geospatial repository environment and to then establish a licensing system that will be acceptable to the community.

Read commentary and news on the legal aspects of digital curation in our:

• Impact of copyright and database right legislation on scientific databases
  Waelde, C; McGinley, M (March 2005). "Public Domain; Public Interest; Public Funding: Focusing on the 'three Ps' in Scientific Research" [external] (a paper published in the March 2005 issue of SCRIPT-ed [external], a Journal of Law and Technology, that examines some of the difficulties faced by scientists engaged in scientific research who may have problems working within the constraints of current copyright and database legislation).
• Digital rights issues in a geospatial repository environment [external]
• Waelde, C; McGinley, M (March 2007). "Designing a licensing strategy for sharing and re-use of geospatial data in the academic sector" [PDF, 735KB] (a report that considers the acquisition, manipulation and use of geospatial data within the research and education sector in the UK and analyses which intellectual property rights might reside in a database containing geospatial data).

It has long been acknowledged that successful digital preservation initiatives are likely to depend heavily on co-operation, e.g. infrastructures that enable the sharing of knowledge, expertise and infrastructure across traditional domain boundaries. The rise of the 'institutional repository' paradigm additionally re-minds us that co-operation is going to be also needed at the repository level. In place of physically integrated, centralised digital preservation systems that will attempt to fulfil all the functions defined by the OAIS model, we are likely to see distributed preservation infrastructures based on networks of co-operating repositories together with shared services like registries of file format information. In these networks, repositories will need ways of interacting both with each other and with their designated communities. Initial work will involve the production of a scoping paper that will introduce the issue and focus on issues like architectures, object exchange and repository certification. This, in turn, will help identify other relevant research topics.

Manual metadata creation and collection for an exponentially increasing volume of digital objects is becoming more difficult. Research here concerns realising methods for automatic semantic metadata extraction using text mining, machine learning theory and natural language processing. We are also investigating standards and tools for the curation of scientific metadata produced at large scale scientific facilities.

• Automatic metadata extraction
• Metadata curation

Data curation is concerned with preservation, annotation and availability of the data. With regards to all three and especially preservation we feel that the 'meaning' and 'machine process-ability' foundations of the Semantic Web and Ontological communities are of direct relevance to such endeavours. The applicability of such approaches with representative data formats used by some of the world-class facilities and data centres run at STFC [external] is being investigated.

Current work includes developing formal models to help state and improve understanding of the problems that arise from copying data from one database to another without keeping track where the data came from (its provenance). These formal models will assist in developing software tools and standards for tracking, exchanging and managing the provenance of data that is transferred between databases. There is also the related issue of retrieving the provenance or lineage of data products that have been derived through a "pipeline" of data processing steps by others.

• Formal models of provenance
• Database curation and provenance [external]
• Provenance retrieval for scripted GIS operations [external]
• Provenance retrieval for scripted scientific data processing work [external]

This is a large topic of importance to all areas of digital curation. It includes the manipulation of data formats, the combination of data from varied sources, and the efficient transmission of data. It is important in metadata conversion, in publishing in community data formats, and in maintaining the currency of information content.

• Schema-directed XML publishing and integration [external]
• Developing co-operative networks of distributed repositories

Research in this area includes preparing a report on topics for ensuring a safe data analysis environment for astronomical data centres, and developing an access-control model for XML database content.

• A safe and effective data analysis environment
• XML Security [external]

Much of the research and development in digital curation requires supporting database and XML technology. The Edinburgh University Database Group [external] works in close collaboration with the DCC on these topics. We list some of them here.

• Integrity Constraints for XML and beyond [external]
• Keys for XML [external]
• XML Query Languages [external]
• Vectorizing XML [external]
• Automated Query Result Ranking [external]