Abstract
Conceptual design blueprint for the DiSSCo digitization infrastructure - DELIVERABLE D8.1
Highlights
Significant obstacles must be overcome as a matter of priority if Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) is to move beyond its Design and Preparatory Phases during 2024
Decisions cannot be taken on one aspect alone without considering other aspects, and here the various governance structures of DiSSCo (General Assembly, advisory boards, and stakeholder forums) play a critical role over the coming years
Numerous (104) recommendations have been made to be considered by other elements of the DiSSCo Programme of linked projects i.e., SYNTHESYS+, COST MOBILISE, DiSSCo Prepare, and others to follow, and the DiSSCo Programme leadership as the journey towards organisational, technical, scientific, data and financial readiness continues
Summary
It is vital to balance multiple factors – technical and engineering, organisational and political, financial and legal, and operational and governance – against one another to achieve the desired goals of the DiSSCo programme. With approximately 1.5 billion objects to be digitized, bringing natural science collections to the information age is expected to result in 90 petabytes of new data over the decades, used on average by 5,000–15,000 unique users every day This requires new skills, clear policies and robust procedures to create, work with and manage large digital datasets over their entire research data lifecycle, including their long-term storage and preservation and open access. We mean digitizing entire collections or their major distinct parts at industrial scale (i.e., millions of objects annually at low cost (e.g., < c.€0.50 per item), characterised by improved workflows, technological and procedural frameworks based on automation (both hardware and software) and enrichment (link-building) This is critical within DiSSCo to mobilise the data from collections as rapidly as possible, so that these data can be more found and used; and can act as an anchor or ‘keyring’ for other data.
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