User Oriented Scenarios

Individual User Scenarios: Computer of Martin

• PROTAGE Installation and Initial Configuration
  In the process of "googling" for possible solutions Martin finds a web page recommending PROTAGE and he decides to try it. He downloads the PROTAGE installation package and opens an included installation manual. OK, simple enough he thinks.
  After the installation Martin starts the PROTAGE Preservation Client. As the first thing Martin is asked to identify himself. He fills a short input form with some information like his name, password, legal status and other relevant details.
  PROTAGE also tells Martin that it has recognised some tools on his computer which can be used in digital preservation actions; among others a virus check tool and a file characterisation tool have been found. Martin looks at the report and accepts it.
  As the next step PROTAGE asks Martin for his "trust settings". Martin is a bit troubled with the meaning of this and looks at the added contextual help texts. Martin discovers that he can configure his preferences in contacting other PROTAGE users and his preferred digital preservation knowledge bases. As Martin does not know too much about the actors and knowledge bases in digital preservation he goes with the default settings, which recommend him to use a digital preservation knowledge base located at the National Archives of his home country and to trust primarily users who are certified as coming from memory institutions.

• Setting Up Data Collections
  Next Martin is asked to input his data collection profile. He browses to a folder "My Documents" which includes his personal photos and videos, selects it and adds a short description of the collection. After that Martin is prompted that PROTAGE is doing some analysis on the collection and after some seconds he is prompted with information about the folder: how many files are available, their sizes, which file formats are used etc. Having looked at the report Martin saves the report and descriptions added by him as the collection profile "personal photos and videos".
  Next he decides to add another collection with his work documents. So he again browses to the folder "C:\Work\", selects it, adds descriptions, looks at the analysis result and saves it as another collection profile "work documents".
  

• Finding Suitable Action Plans
  Now Martin decides to start the actual digital preservation activities on his data collections. To do that he selects the collection profile "personal photos and videos" defined earlier and selects "Recommend preservation actions on collection" from the PROTAGE menu. Martin is then prompted that PROTAGE is sending a query to "the digital preservation knowledge base". He is also informed that the query includes anonymised information gathered from Martins' user and collection profiles and that no personal details or file content are sent.
  After a while Martin is prompted with a list of 5 different recommended action plans ordered regarding to their trust ratings and suitability for Martins' collection. Martin notices that three action plans are tagged as originating from an organisation which is dealing with preservation of audiovisual materials and two are from "ordinary users". Martin is also shown that two of those action plans are certified by the National Archives in Martins' home country and therefore could be more trusted than others.
  Martin looks a bit more at the descriptions of the action plans and the public profiles of the action plan creators and decides to use one of the certified action plans, as it is almost as suitable as the best of the other options. He also marks the author of the action plan to be a "trusted contact". Martin now selects the action plan to be added to "My action plans".
  

• Modifying Action Plans
  As Martin was busy with other things some time has passed until he again starts PROTAGE. Martin is aware that he has added some more files into the folders monitored by PROTAGE and decides to repeat an analysis. However, much to his surprise he discovers that an analysis has been done just a few seconds ago and his collection profile has been updated.
  Now Martin opens the action plan available under "My action plans" and selects to have a detailed view of it. He can see that the action plan includes four actions: checking for viruses; checking for preservation formats; migrating files not matching preservation formats; and validating migrated files.
  Martin compares the action plan with a list of all preservation actions available and decides to also add an action called "Create technical metadata" as the first action in the plan. However, PROTAGE prompts that creating technical metadata should be the last step in the action flow as technical metadata will change when files are migrated. Martin agrees to this and adds the metadata action as the last one in the action plan and saves the modified action plan. Thus, the following actions are performed by the agents:

  	- Metadata Check. Transparently, agents make use of different web services or installed tools to extract technical metadata about Martin's files and create a listing of his files and technical metadata.
  	- Advise File Formats and Metadata Requirements. The advice to Martin concerns pre-conditions for migration. PROTAGE will advise Martin about requirements or recommendations for file formats and metadata standards (technical, content etc).

  
  

• Finding Suitable Tools for Actions
  Martin opens the saved action plan and confirms a list of "suggested tools for actions" that PROTAGE had found for him. PROTAGE automatically contacts different knowledge bases for web services matching Martins' user and collection profile and the actions in this action plan. As a result Martin is prompted to use the virus check tool installed locally in his computer for the first action. Also, Martin is told to use archival file formats recommended by the National Archives in his country. For migration, two different web services are found – one for pictures and one for videos; additionally it is prompted that two very good tools are available for download. However, those are not freeware and Martin decides to use the slower but free web services. For metadata extraction, an existing tool in Martins' computer is recommended.
  Martin saves his tool selections and tells PROTAGE to start executing the actions.

• Prompting Results
  While the action plan is executing, Martin can see the progress of different actions as well as estimates of "time until completion". After the actions finish, Martin is prompted feedback from the actions (how many files were executed, which problems were found etc.). Particularly PROTAGE prompts that two files were probably not migrated correctly. Martin checks it manually and finds that to be so, and accepts the suggestion by PROTAGE to keep the original files for those.
  Martin is also asked if he is satisfied with the action plan and the tools used. He writes some short comments and agrees to share this information with other PROTAGE users and agents.

• Asking for Preservation Advice
  Martin decides to try out an alternative way of using PROTAGE: he selects "Ask for advice" from the menu and an input window opens. As he wants to know about using CD-R for backing up his personal files he selects the category "using off-line media" and inputs the question "Shall I use CD-R for back-up?" PROTAGE analyses the question and searches for answers, using also Martins' collection profile.
  After a while Martin is prompted the answer: "Yes, in your case it is reasonable to use CD-R for personal back-up". He is also prompted with two short reports and one guideline explaining more in detail how to create back-up CDs (which brands to avoid and to create at least two copies). He is also asked if he should be reminded in some time to check the readability of the media. Martin agrees to this and PROTAGE adds to its schedule an action plan for this in two years from now.

Digital Curator Scenarios: Day of Eva

• Updating File Format Information
  First Eva opens the administration interface of the PROTAGE Preservation Client and selects the pre-configured knowledge base maintained by the National Archives. She browses to the section "Information on file formats". In her country a new version of the file (encapsulation) format for digitally signed files has been issued. Therefore Eva selects "add new file format description" and inserts all the relevant details. Also she marks the older version of the same format as "outdated / new version available".
  Also, Eva has found out that support for some file formats or their older versions has been discontinued and therefore she starts a query into an international knowledge base - PRONOM - to see if information about those file formats has been updated there. Eva can see that indeed most of the file formats have been marked as being "not supported". However, the .rhh file format description has not been updated and he marks this too as being "not supported".
  Eva then updates information about the tool necessary for accessing the digital signature capsules (there is a new version available also for this) and adds the information, that the software for reading .rhh files (RHH editor) is not supported any more.
  Finally, Eva synchronises all her changes and additions with PRONOM to make it available also to other institutions.

• Updating Preservation Action Tool Information
  After finishing with file formats Eva decides to input a new migration tool into the national knowledge base. She selects "add new preservation action tool description" and adds all relevant details – name, version, status, description, provider etc. In particular she uses a preservation action tool ontology to state that the tool category is "text document migration tool" and also adds references into PRONOM of the supported input and output file formats. She also inputs some execution details, the web service address at the National Archives and a request sentence in Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) format.

Adding New Actions

• Creating New Action Plans
  As the next task Eva decides to input information on a new preservation action plan for adding digital video files into a preservation collection. The action plan consists of 8 different steps:

  	1. check files for viruses;
  	2. negotiate for suitable archival formats;
  	3. migrate files into archival format;
  	4. compare input and output of previous action (migration);
  	5. resize video to standard resolution;
  	6. extract audio;
  	7. extract technical metadata;
  	8. create packages/sets of video, audio and metadata.

  
  To do this, Eva selects "create new action plan" in PROTAGE and selects the suitable actions from the digital preservation action ontology. After doing that she goes into more "fine-tuning" and sets the "prerequisites" and "expected results" for the action plan and the actions. To finalise the action plan she also enters a few short human readable descriptions of the action plan and selects suitable user and collection profiles from a separate classificatory.
  Eva saves the new action plan and thus makes it available to the PROTAGE community.