*** Cross-posted ***

At the UC Curation Center (UC3) we're working on modeling the curation domain to provide a conceptually-coherent foundation for evaluating and describing our technologies, policies, and activities.  We attempted to derive the model from first principles assuming that curation is an inherently semiotic activity and incorporating the many important advances of prior modeling efforts such as FRBR, OAIS, NAA, PLM, BRM, ICO, and others.  While not finalized, model is reasonably well-defined in a draft whitepaper available at http://wiki.ucop.edu/display/Curation/Foundations.  We welcome your reactions, comments, and suggestions.

"Digital curation is a complex of actors, policies, practices, and technologies that enables meaningful consumer engagement with authentic content of interest across space and time. To ensure that it is using its curation resources in the most productive manner, the University of California Curation Center (UC3) has modeled the curation domain to provide a consistent, comprehensive, yet parsimonious conceptual foundation for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of its manifold activities. The UC3 Sept model builds upon, and attempts to consolidate, prior efforts such as Kahn and Wilensky, FRBR, OAIS, NAA performance model, PLM, PREMIS, BRM, ICO, SPOT, and NDSA levels of preservation. It also draws upon relevant concepts from cognitive psychology, information science, game theory, and semiotic theory. The model considers curated content with respect to five distinct semiotic dimensions: semantics, syntactics, empirics, pragmatics, and dynamics, which refer respectively to content's underlying abstract meaning or affect, inner and outer symbolic encoding structures, physical representations, behaviors, and evolution through time. Correspondingly, there is a hierarchical typology of accumulating content utility: entities, artifacts, articles, commodities, assets, and heirlooms, which are respectively existential, intentional, purposeful, meaningful, useful, and reliable digital objects. Content engagement is modeled in terms of three roles and related loci of concerns: producers/production, managers/management, and consumers/consumption, all co-existing within a continuum of formalizing, codifying, and pluralizing dimensions encompassing the engendering of, imposition of structure upon, and extension of reach and consequence of curated content. Curation strategies are modeled in terms of six high-level imperatives: predilect, collect, protect, introspect, project, and connect. The UC3 model components and terminology can be used to make precise yet concise statements regarding curation intentions, activities, and results."

http://wiki.ucop.edu/display/Curation/Foundations

--sla

Stephen Abrams
Associate Director, UC Curation Center
California Digital Library
University of California, Office of the President
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+1 510-987-0370