Purpose
The Technical Working Group (WG) oversees development and maintenance of specifications, software, and servers that support infrastructure for the ARK Alliance (ARKA) community. Examples include ARK standardization, code for counting ARKs, and global resolver replication.
Objectives
- Standardization. Review the ARK specification so that the authors, who are WG members, can finalize it and submit it to the IETF for publication as an Internet RFC.
NAAN procedures. Adapt current CDL procedures for updating NAANs and registering new NAANs so that these maintenance activities can be shared by the community, eg, on github. (The NAAN registry that CDL currently maintains is a text file of globally unique 5-digit Name Assigning Authority Numbers (NAANs) reserved for organizations that wish to assign ARKs.)
Counting ARKs. Work with the Outreach Working Group to implement mechanisms to measure ARK usage world-wide.
Deliverables
Kickoff: clarify objectives and assign roles for (a) standardization and (b) NAAN procedures designers; spec authors articulate areas they think are problematic
Months 1-9: several rounds of review, feedback, and revision for (a) and (b), including public review via the arks-forum list; NAAN procedures are piloted
Months 13-15: recruit NAAN registry workers
- Months 16-20: feedback and review of '?info' inflection for returning human- and machine-readable metadata; ARK spec submitted to IETF
- Months 18-19: establish NAAN request-to-entry online tool at N2T; further refinements to procedures
- Months 20-24: deal with spec feedback from the IETF
Months 24-26: “counting ARKs” project design and prototyping then begins
- Months 26-27: counting ARKs prototype is tested
Month 28: updated WG objectives and deliverables for the coming year, with an accordingly updated overall ARKA roadmap
Resources
2008 ARK spec: http://n2t.net/e/arkspec.txt
- 2020 ARK spec: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-kunze-ark-27
Current NAAN registry: https://n2t.net/e/pub/naan_registry.txt
Global ARK (and other identifiers) resolver, N2T (Name-to-Thing): https://n2t.net
Notes from ARK "Experts" meetings in 2018, with discussions of surveys, ARK spec changes, counting ARKs, sustainability, etc
General WG features common across ARKA working groups
Persistence Statements: Describing Digital Stickiness: https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2017-039
Working Group Members
- Emmanuelle Bermes BnF
Bertrand Caron BnF (AG Liaison, Co-chair for NAANs)
- Tom Creighton Family Search
- Adrien Di Mascio Toucan Toco
- Karen Hanson Portico
- Greg Janée UC Santa Barbara
- Cillian Joy National University of Ireland, Galway
John Kunze California Digital Library (AG Liaison, Co-chair for Specification)
- Roxana Maurer National Library of Luxembourg
- Curtis Mirci University of Utah
- Sheila Morrissey Portico, emeritus
- Mark Phillips University of North Texas
- Amir Alwash HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland
- Dave Vieglais Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas
Meeting Times
Teleconferences are generally held once a month, 09:00-10:00 California time, on the second Tuesday. Connection details included in calendar invitations.
Communication Channels
arka-technical-wg@googlegroups.com, archived at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/arka-technical-wg
