I would like to draw your attention to a workshop at IPRES on Open Research Challenges. It is a full-day workshop tentatively scheduled for October 2. The workshop builds on an earlier Dagstuhl seminar which some of you may be aware of. It is a great opportunity for discussing the next challenges ahead in digital longevity. Please spread the word and participate – and also encourage others to submit a research challenge! More information below.

*** Call for Contributions: Open Research Challenges in Digital Preservation ***

Digital Preservation has emerged as a key challenge for information systems in almost any domain from eCommerce and eGovernment to finance, health, and personal life. The field is increasingly recognised and  has taken major strides in the last decade. However, key areas of research are often limited to applying solutions to existing problems rather than proactively investigating the challenges ahead and probing for innovative break-through approaches that would radically advance the domain.

Open Research Challenges @ IPRES 2012

To provide a forum for eliciting, discussing and refining future research challenges in digital longevity, we are organising a full-day workshop at IPRES 2012 in Toronto, Canada. The goal of this interactive workshop is to elicit and discuss DP research challenges to be tackled in the next decade. It brings together researchers in order to step beyond the limitations of solutions that are applicable now, and develop concepts, models and solutions for upcoming challenges. This will cover diverse areas such as Information Systems, Databases, Information Retrieval, Library and Archival Science, Content Management, Modeling, Simulation, Human-Computer Interaction, Scholarly Communication, Systems Engineering, Cloud computing, Security and others.

The workshop is an interactive event focusing on discussions and inspirational exchange between participants on challenging new research questions. To achieve this goal, we follow the model of the Dagstuhl seminar on Automation in Digital Preservation held in 2010.

We do not wish to prescribe topics for challenges, but encourage proposals to think outside of the box and propose challenges that lie ahead rather than research problems that are currently being tackled.

Please submit your description of a research challenge in which you

• argue for the concrete motivation behind this challenge,
• set it in relation to existing work  and
• provide a context that enables understanding and further investigation.

This includes questions such as the following

• Why is this topic relevant?
• Why has it not been addressed yet?
• What are the problems involved?
• What is the potential impact if this is successfully addressed?

Format and mode of submissions

Papers should be submitted in PDF format and should be 2-4 pages. They should conform to the ACM SIG template. Three to five keywords characterizing the paper should be indicated at the end of the abstract. It is expected that at least one author of each accepted challenge will register for and attend the workshop. Submissions should be sent to [email protected].

Important dates

Challenge submission deadline: September 5, 2012 (EXTENDED)
Notification of acceptance: September 10, 2012
Workshop: October 2, 2012

Up-to-date information can be found at the workshop website: http://digitalpreservationchallenges.wordpress.com

With best regards, the workshop chairs:
Christoph Becker
Andreas Rauber
Christopher (Cal) Lee