Description (en)
This paper presents the initial results of the ENSURE (Enabling kNowledge Sustainability, Usability and Recovery for Economic value) project, which focuses on the challenges associated with the long-term preservation of data produced by organisations in the health care, clinical trials and financial sectors. In particular the project has looked at the economic implications of long-term preservation for business, how to maintain the accessibility and confidentiality of sensitive information in a changing environment, and how to detect and respond to such environmental changes. The project has developed a prototype system, which is based around a lifecycle manager and makes use of ontologies to identify and trigger necessary transformations of the data objects in order to ensure their long-term usability. It also uses cloud technology for its flexibility, expansibility, and low start-up costs. This paper presents one of the use cases: the health care as a way to illustrate some of the challenges addressed by the ENSURE system.