Should Web Archives Be Used For Research Data Preservation?
This poster describes some of the challenges for managing web archive collections when they intersect with research data preservation. A web archive collection at the University of Alberta inadvertently harvested large data files from another institution which resulted in overloading the subscription budget for Archive-IT. A discussion followed about the appropriate policy approaches for web archive programs when they encounter research data on the web. The poster presents some of the evaluation criteria used to make decisions about including or excluding research data from web archives. Existing web archive tools are ill-prepared to deal with research data. Furthermore, responsibility for preserving research data and web documents is difficult to determine. Finally, the role of third-parties outside of the original institutions where research data is created is still unclear.
Future activity in this area should address these challenges.
["Suomela, Todd"]
["web archives", "research data", "preservation policies"]