Project L13

1. Project L13 Feasibility of an Archive for Reliability and Related Data SHRP 2 Technical Coordinating Committee for Reliability Research Meeting Irvine, California April 08, 2010 Zongwei Tao, Principal Investigator

2. Topics • Project L13 Accomplishments • Demonstration of Prototype • Findings and Recommendations

3. L13 Completed Ahead of Schedule and On Budget • Project initiated in Oct 2008 • Reported progress in April 2009 to Reliability TCC • Project extended 12 months with additional $75,000 to develop a prototype – commenced Sept 2009 • Delivered preliminary draft final report in Nov 2009 • Completed prototype early Jan 2010 • Draft final report submitted March 2010 – six months ahead of plan

4. L13 Yields Meaningful Outcomes Suited for Implementation • Established conclusively that the recommended approach based upon a digital repository management system with a flexible metadata management scheme, combined with cloud storage, is highly feasible • We were able to assemble a prototype system exclusively from no-cost, open source software that approximates the expected user experience of a real-world system • Provides a broadly applicable reference model for how the intellectual capital embodied in transportation research programs can be preserved and made accessible

5. L13 – A Project with Broad Implications • Study to determine feasibility of building a long-lived archive to preserve Reliability Focus area project data • “in the range of 20 to 50 years” • “to allow others to validate the research results” • to make the data “available for researchers in the future to refine and build on the research results” • Has a material impact on how all Reliability project data and findings can become useful “products” • SHRP 1 experience illustrates the importance of preservation planning

6. Users Servedby the Archival System Transportation Leaders Interested in small, critical data set for business decisions Need to quickly find project conclusions Researchers and Analysts Interested in verifying research results and building new research programs Need to find raw data and research methodologies Transportation Technical Staff Interested in applying end products to daily operations Need to quickly find end products based on roles and responsibilities Non-Transportation Professionals Interested in end products on operational strategies Need to quickly find project conclusions, results and strategies

7. Findings Leadto Conceptual Design Research Program Teams Practitioner and Research Community Portal • Preservation Best Practices • Standards • Format Transformation • Structured navigation through SHRP 2 project context and content • Faceted search and filtering • On-the-fly data sub-setting and download Web Content Management Service Data Extraction and Transformation Service User Management Service Rights Management Service Content/Metadata Indexing and Query Service Administration DataManagement Appraisal and Classification Ingest Access ArchivalStorage Preservation Planning Producers Open Archival Information System Consumers

8. In a relatively short time the Weris team assembled a prototype system exclusively from no-cost, open source software that approximates the expected user experience of a real-world system We were able to deploy the system on a completely virtualized environment using readily available commercial cloud computing services We demonstrated that this approach minimizes up-front cost and risk Prototype

9. Collaborative Process with L03 Provided L03 with the scope and general requirements for the prototype 1 Conduct 1st Call with L03 2 Receive L03 Data Plans and Sample Data 3 Identify a Set of L03 Data for Prototype 4 Prepare Metadata Guidelines 5 Conduct 2nd Call with L03 6 Receive Requested Data 7 Review Received Data Provided L03 with the list of digital objects to be used in prototype, metadata guiltiness, and examples Acceptable? 8 Catalog and Ingest into the prototype No Yes

10. Prototype Software “Stack” DrupalIslandoraOpenWMS Fedora GSearch Apache Tomcat LuceneMySQL Java XML PHP Linux

11. Prototype Features & Functions

12. We believe that we have established that it is highly feasible for the SHRP 2 program to cost-effectively deploy a data archival system that meets all of the goals and objectives envisioned by its major stakeholders We recommend that the SHRP 2 program proceed with the L13a Reliability archive project as planned, following the L13 approach Findings and Conclusions

13. Critical Success Factor 1 for L13a and L16 Independent COTS Evaluation • COTS proposed for L13a should be evaluated independently • COTS evaluation will take time • Evaluation time must be built in to the procurement process

14. Critical Success Factor 2 for L13a and L16 Set Standards Early • Decisions on standards and practices are independent of any COTS to be implemented • Standards must be set well in advance of system implementation

15. Critical Success Factor 3 for L13a and L16 Knowledge Preservation • Institutional knowledge about a project deteriorates with time • Preparation for preserving intellectual content of research projects must start during early stages of the projects’ lifecycle

16. Critical Success Factor 4 for L13a and L16 Provide Education • Project contractors must be educated on the archiving preparation process • Archiving preparation needs to be actively managed

17. Critical Success Factor 5 for L13a and L16 Program Management • The critical program management role will encompass the systematic management of - contractor engagement and education - content preparation and submission - software procurement - system development and deployment

18. Acknowledgements • SHRP 2 Program Director • Senior Program Officers of Reliability, Capacity, Renewal and Safety • Contractors of L01, L02, L03, L04, L06, L07, L10, L11, L12, and L14 • Contractors of C01, C04, C05 • FHWA LTPP Team and other staff • Reliability TCC and L13 Subcommittee