Abstract:
Risk is a constant in every area and at all levels of any
organization, whether in a general context or in a specific activity,
project or function. Risk Management comprises a set of
coordinated activities to direct and control an organization with
regard to risk. Risk Assessment is considered the most important
phase of Risk Management, which consists in identifying,
analyzing and evaluating risks. Digital preservation’s main
concern is to keep information accessible and understandable over
a long period of time, through means of digital objects; therefore,
it is an area that needs a thorough Risk Management and,
especially, a thorough Risk Assessment. In fact, the digital
preservation process can be seen as Risk Management activities to
protect digital information from inherent threats and
vulnerabilities. The digital preservation problem can be even more
complex in the context of e-Science, which is progressively being
considered as a reference method for experimental scientific
discovery, and whose data and processes need to be handled and
preserved. As such, this paper analyzes the applicability of Risk
Assessment techniques, in the context of digital preservation and,
more concretely, in the preservation of e-Science data and
processes, in order to develop a Risk Assessment method that can
be applied while managing the life-cycle of digital information.
