The goal of this project (PA/6.2) is to
design a file format for Context Aware
Objects and add support for these to an
conventional repository system. In this
project we use Fedora (see:
http://fedora-commons.org) as the
conventional repository system,
however, we expect that the Fedora
enhancements will be easily adaptable
to other systems.
As opposed to objects stored in a
conventional repository system, a
context aware object (CAO) contains,
among other things, the metadata and
technical metadata about its digital
contents. This information will always
follow the object, thus minimising the
risk of losing it in case of a system
crash or migration to another
repository system.
A CAO also carries small pieces of
program which can be invoked by the
repository to examine if the
environment still satisfies the
requirements of the object. That is,
the repository provide information
about the environment to the CAO and
can ask it whether the appropriate
viewers or editors still are available.
If the environment has changed in a way
that e.g. makes it necessary to take
action, such as migrating to another
format, then the CAO will notify the
repository.
Furthermore, the CAO may also contain
pieces of program for assisting, or
even performing, migration of its
digital content to another format.
