National Digital Preservation Programme

During year 2008, R & D in IT Group, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India ^[1]envisaged to evolve Indian digital preservation initiative. In order to get the initial exposure of this field, during March 24-25, 2009, an Indo-US Workshop on International Trends in Digital Preservation was organized by C-DAC, Pune with sponsorship from Indo-US Science & Technology Forum, which lead to more constructive developments towards formulation of the national program.^[2]

National Study Report on Digital Preservation Requirements of India

During 2010, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India entrusted the responsibility of preparing National Study Report on Digital Preservation Requirements of India with Human-Centred Design & computing Group, C-DAC, Pune, which already involved in research and development in the thematic area of heritage computing.^[3] The objective of this project was to present a comprehensive study of current situation in India versus the international trends of digital preservation along with the recommendations for undertaking the National Digital Preservation Programme by involving all stakeholder organizations.

Technical experts from around 30 organizations representing diverse domains such as e-governance, government and state archives, audio, video and film archives, cultural heritage repositories, health, science and education, insurance and banking, law, etc were included in the national expert group. Major institutions represented in the expert group were Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC), National Informatics Centre (NIC), Unique Identity Programme, National Archive of India, National Film Archive of India, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Information and Broadcasting (Doordarshan and All India Radio), National Remote Sensing Center (NRSC) / ISRO, Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA), National e-Governance Division (NeGD), Life Insurance Corporation, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Indian Institute of Public Administration, Defense Scientific Information & Documentation Centre (DSIDC), etc. the expert group members were asked to submit position papers highlighting the short term and long term plans for digital preservation with respect to their domain. The study report was presented before Government of India in two volumes as under -

Volume –I Recommendations for National Digital Preservation Programme of India
Volume-II Position Papers by the National Expert Group Members

The report included an overview of international digital presentation projects, study of legal imperatives, study of technical challenges and standards, consolidated recommendations given by the national expert group for the National Digital Preservation Programme.^[4]

Centre of Excellence for Digital Preservation

As recommended in the national study report, during year 2011, Centre of Excellence for Digital Preservation was launched as the flagship project under the National Digital Preservation Programme, funded by Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India. The project was awarded to Human-Centred Design & Computing Group, C-DAC Pune, India. The objectives of Centre of Excellence were as under:

Conduct research and development in digital preservation to produce the required tools, technologies, guidelines and best practices.
Develop the pilot digital preservation repositories and provide help in nurturing the network of Trustworthy Digital Repositories (national digital preservation infrastructure) as a long-term goal
Define the digital preservation standards by involving the experts from stakeholder organizations, consolidate and disseminate the digital preservation best practices generated through various projects under National Digital Preservation Programme, being the nodal point for pan-India digital preservation initiatives.
Provide inputs to Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology in the formation of national digital preservation policy and strategy by identifying and selecting the activities for the National Digital Preservation Programme.
Spread awareness about the potential threats and risks due to digital obsolescence and the digital preservation best practices.

The major outcomes of this project are briefly summarized as under.^[5]

Digital Preservation Standard and Guidelines

Digital preservation standard and guidelines are developed in order to help local data intensive projects in preparing for highly demanding standards such as ISO 16363 for Audit and Certification of Trusted Digital Repositories. The standard is duly notified by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India Vide Notification No. 1(2)/2010-EG-II dated December 13, 2013 for all e-governance applications in India. ^[6]^[7]

e-Governance standard for Preservation Information Documentation (eGOV-PID) of Electronic Records

The eGOV-PID provides standard metadata dictionary and schema for automatically capturing the preservation metadata in terms of cataloguing information, enclosure information, provenance information, fixity information, representation information, digital signature information and access rights information immediately after an electronic record is produced by e-governance system. It helps in producing an acceptable Submission Information Package (SIP) for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) ISO 14721:2012.

Best practices and guidelines for Production of Preservable e-Records

Best practices and guidelines introduce 5 distinct steps of e-record management namely e-record creation, e-record capturing, e-record keeping, e-record transfer to trusted digital repository and e-record preservation which need to be adopted in all e-governance projects. It also specifies the open source and standard based file formats for the production of e-records. The guidelines incorporate the Electronic Records Management practice as per the ISO/TR 15489-1 and 2 Information and Documentation - Records Management.

Digital Preservation Tools and Solutions

However, it is difficult to implement the digital preservation standard due to unavailability required tools and solutions. Therefore, the standard and guidelines are supported with a variety of digital preservation tools and solutions which can be given to the memory institutions and records creating organizations for long term preservation. The project team at C-DAC Pune has developed a software framework for digital archiving named as DIGITĀLAYA (डिजिटालय in Hindi language) which is customizable for various domains, data types and application contexts such as

E-records management & archival (a variety of born digital records produced by organizations on day-to-day basis)
Large volume of e-governance records
Audiovisual archives
Digital libraries / document archives

DIGITĀLAYA (डिजिटालय) is designed and developed as per the CCSDS Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model, ISO 14721: 2012.

A number of digital preservation tools are developed to help in processing the digital data

e-acquisition tool
Pre-archival data processing tool
e-records extraction tool
Metadata importing and aggregation tool
Any to any metadata conversion tool
Data encryption and transfer tool
PDF/A converter tool

All the archival systems and digital preservation tools are developed in such a way that they enable in producing evidences / reports as required for the audit and certification of trustworthy digital repositories.

Capacity Building for Audit and Certification

The High Level 3-day Training Course on ISO 16363 for Auditors and Managers of Digital Repositories was conducted during 11-13 January 2017 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India. This training was organized as per the deliverables of Centre of Excellence for Digital Preservation by C-DAC Pune in collaboration with Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorization Body (PTAB), UK.^[8]

This initiative was helpful in in formally introducing the ISO 16363 and ISO 16919 through the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB) for the audit and certification of Indian digital repositories. The first batch of potential technical auditors was trained which included 27 Participants from various stakeholder organizations.

Pilot Digital Repositories

In order to test and demonstrate the effectiveness of digital preservation tools, various pilot digital repositories were developed in collaboration with domain institutions such as Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts; New Delhi; National Archive of India, New Delhi; Stamps and registration Department, Hyderabad; and e-District. Among these, National Cultural Audiovisual Archive (NCAA) established by IGNCA, New Delhi is the most notable digital repository, which is established using DIGITĀLAYA (डिजिटालय).^[9]

NCAA has been certified as Trustworthy Digital Repository on 27 November 2017, as per ISO 16363 by Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorization Body (PTAB), UK ^[10]which has been accredited by National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB), New Delhi, India.^[11] This is world's first Certified Trusted Digital Repository (Certificate No. PTAB-TDRMS 0001) as per ISO 16363.^[12]

Based on the experience gained from this project, Government of India is considering to create a national policy on digital preservation which will be instrumental in establishing national digital preservation infrastructure. The digital preservation initiative stands at the crux where it is crucial to fill up the gap between the Digital India and the challenges posed by rampant technological obsolescence, to make it a truly sustainable vision.

^ "Digital Preservation | Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India". meity.gov.in. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
^ "Indo-US Workshop on International Trends in Digital Preservation". Retrieved 2017-12-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
^ "National Digital Preservation Programme". www.cdac.in. Retrieved 2017-12-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
^ "National Digital Preservation Programme". Retrieved 2017-12-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
^ "Major Project Output | Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India". meity.gov.in. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
^ "Notified Standards | e-Governance Standards, Standards for e-governance Applications". egovstandards.gov.in. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
^ SiliconIndia. "Government Notifies Standard For Digital Preservation Of e-Governance Data". siliconindia. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
^ "मौल्यवान डेटा सुरक्षित ठेवा -Maharashtra Times". Maharashtra Times (in Marathi). 2017-04-07. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
^ "National Cultural Audiovisual Archives". National Cultural Audiovisual Archives. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
^ "The ISO 16363 site | Accredited for ISO 16363 audit and certification". PTAB - Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorisation Body Ltd. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
^ "List of Certification Bodies". www.qcin.org. Retrieved 2017-12-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
^ "INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE ARTS | PTAB – Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorisation Body Ltd". PTAB - Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorisation Body Ltd. Retrieved 2017-12-11.

[1] "Digital Preservation | Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India". meity.gov.in. Retrieved 2017-12-11.

[2] "Indo-US Workshop on International Trends in Digital Preservation". Retrieved 2017-12-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)

[3] "National Digital Preservation Programme". www.cdac.in. Retrieved 2017-12-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)

[4] "National Digital Preservation Programme". Retrieved 2017-12-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)

[5] "Major Project Output | Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India". meity.gov.in. Retrieved 2017-12-11.

[6] "Notified Standards | e-Governance Standards, Standards for e-governance Applications". egovstandards.gov.in. Retrieved 2017-12-11.

[7] SiliconIndia. "Government Notifies Standard For Digital Preservation Of e-Governance Data". siliconindia. Retrieved 2017-12-11.

[8] "मौल्यवान डेटा सुरक्षित ठेवा -Maharashtra Times". Maharashtra Times (in Marathi). 2017-04-07. Retrieved 2017-12-11.

[9] "National Cultural Audiovisual Archives". National Cultural Audiovisual Archives. Retrieved 2017-12-11.

[10] "The ISO 16363 site | Accredited for ISO 16363 audit and certification". PTAB - Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorisation Body Ltd. Retrieved 2017-12-11.

[11] "List of Certification Bodies". www.qcin.org. Retrieved 2017-12-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)

[12] "INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE ARTS | PTAB – Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorisation Body Ltd". PTAB - Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorisation Body Ltd. Retrieved 2017-12-11.

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