Managing immersive tech projects for future access & re-use

Corrupted, lost, or deleted files. Software that no longer runs on your laptop. Losing your web hosting or domain name. These are the last things anyone imagines happening to their academic work. These digital disasters may not be a concern when students and faculty are focused on finishing a project among other professional and personal obligations. Fortunately, as librarians, we are committed to ensuring that the scholarly record is accessible. These issues are especially important to consider with regard to immersive technology spaces.

At North Carolina State University Libraries, faculty and students use high-definition projectors and surround sound in these spaces for large-scale display, audiovisual simulations, or immersion in virtual environments. In our first post, we explained how our library upgrades this technology every few years. We also covered the challenges of documenting contributorship and making immersive technology projects discoverable when they rely on changing technologies (equipment, software, and hardware) and are designed for a specific venue or space. In this post, we discuss the importance of stewarding and managing project files for future access and re-use.

When the experience of a research project is tied to a specific space, the projects often end up being ephemeral. Desktop applications rely on dependencies which can break due to operating system updates. Files may be compatible with a specific version of software that is no longer supported. A dynamic, interactive website — which serves as one manifestation of the site-specific work — needs hands-on maintenance to sustain its original functionality and look. From virtual reality assets to cloud storage, all digital materials face some level of risk of technological obsolescence. Who knew digital scholarship could be more fragile than a mass printed book held by multiple libraries? To mitigate the risk of technological obsolescence, there are steps libraries and creators can take, and that starts with file management.

In 2020 our immersive technology spaces were closed, but this was an opportune time to begin work on guidelines and documentation that would improve library stewardship of project files. First, we took a look at the existing files located on a display server in our Teaching & Visualization Lab. Over the years, oversight of these spaces migrated between a few different departments and staff. Without a strategy for handling project files, files from student and faculty research projects accumulated on the desktop and in other directories. It was unorganized. Folder and file names were often vague. Most files lacked descriptive metadata, such as project titles, creator names, dates, or other identifiers that would facilitate discovery.

When files are named Defense.pptx, Defense (1).pptx, Defense (2).pptx, Defense (3).pptx, DEFENSE (4).pptx, Defense.v2 (1).pptx, and Defense.v2.pptx, how do we know what we have? When we want to use past projects as demos and help researchers with projects that span semesters, having such disorganized files makes this difficult. This lack of organization and description led us to create guidelines on how to manage files on the display server. So we wrote documentation for staff and creators on naming and structuring files and directories. This included the suggestion of having a README file that contains descriptive metadata and a file manifest. Specifically, a README supports future re-use by documenting contributors, rights, or software dependencies for an app.

After consulting with library IT colleagues, we also identified criteria for retaining files on the display server. We decided that the contents of the Desktop and other folders like Downloads would get cleared at the end of each academic year. It would be up to staff to communicate this configuration to users and to encourage them to keep copies of their own work. We also created an inventory of existing files and asked colleagues which ones needed to be kept on the display server. Some projects were created by those who had left NC State and were no longer reachable, but rather than deleting them, we moved these to temporary storage.

Not only do we want these file management practices to be transparent to creators, but we also want to set expectations for how their project files would be managed over time. Consequently, we made a user agreement that is now a part of our space request form. The agreement explicitly gives the library permission to re-use works for demos or on our website. It also explains how we periodically delete project files unless otherwise agreed upon — like in a data management plan or memorandum of understanding (MOU) — and that we do not preserve them for long-term access.

Many times, creators of research projects that are displayed in our technology-rich spaces assume that we will preserve their project files in perpetuity so that anyone can come into the space and open the files years into the future. While we do have a repository for scholarly articles, dissertations, and other publications, and our Special Collections Research Center does preserve university records, we lack the infrastructure and labor to provide maintenance of projects for ongoing access. Similarly, digital preservation also requires people and resources. While it is a means to an end for long-term access, the goal is more to preserve the authenticity and integrity of the data — the bits — and intellectual content, rather than the original experience of the project as displayed in a specific space.

The good news is that library staff can help students and faculty with different strategies for making projects sustainable and accessible in the future. The sooner this is done, the better. In other words, we can better assist before or during the active creation of the project rather than after it has wrapped up. We can consult on best practices for file and data management, which is important when a highly collaborative project consists of hundreds of gigabytes of files across cloud and physical storage. Having data backups, metadata, and documentation are essential for both short and long term access and re-use. We can also advise on where you can deposit your research outputs once they have been described. All of this can minimize the risks of losing or being unable to view digital works due to changes in hardware or software.

Depending on the project, creators could also consider:

• For how long should the project be usable while maintaining its current functionality and appearance?
• Is project data structured and machine-readable, and does it use a metadata standard appropriate for the disciplinary area/s?
• If there is a project website, is it static, or does it use server-side databases and scripts?

Future-proofing projects that involve many files that operate together is crucial, but this is often overlooked by project creators. We cannot predict what digital tools and applications faculty and students will use in their scholarly investigations in the future. Nor can we predict what devices or computing environments future researchers and librarians will use to retrieve today’s digital scholarship. What we do know is that planning for technological change and incorporating good file management practices go a long way towards making site-specific, immersive technology projects less fleeting and more impactful in the near-future.

Project maintenance does require labor and time. Some creators may be unable to make their projects discoverable beyond the spaces, but at the minimum, what if these projects were documented on our highly trafficked library website? Read our next post to learn about how we worked with our web development colleagues to highlight immersive technology projects and spaces.