Image Functional Requirements

From DigiRepWiki

Scope

The scope of the project also had to consider the range of image collections that repositories hold or plan to hold in future. Such a range could include among others:

- The outcomes of individual research and artistic endeavour

- Institutional photographic and slide collections

- Institutional archive and museum image collections

- Institutional teaching and research collections

In the first instance repositories probably aim to begin storing images related to the outcomes of individual research and artistic endeavour, not least on the back of some current image and multimedia-centric repository start-up projects currently in progress. However in the longer term there is likely to be an institutional requirement to manage the outcomes of all forms of image digitisation including larger archive, museum, teaching and slide collections. We therefore took the opinion that the IAP should endeavour to keep the sharing of metadata relating to all these types of image data collections in project scope.

In terms of defining the term image for the project, we decided on a format-based approach that would include any flat two-dimensional digital image format. This omits paintings, photographic prints, slides and anything which is three dimensional or analogue. As such these are objects depicted within or sources for the digital image but not the image itself. This definition suggests that what end-users will primarily be searching for through repositories is a ‘digital image of something’, the something being either: an object, or an event, an abstract concept, or a place. For us this format-based approach to definition had the advantage of clearly marking the lines between digital images and their content and sources, and allowed us to make clear decisions on what were describing in our various profile entities.

We acknowledge that there may be some issues as regards certain file formats such as PDF, which, although technically an image format, is often treated as text. This could also be true of any image format which has been used to capture a text with the intention of it being ‘read’ by an end-user as a document. However, we feel these issues can be addressed at the local repository level and were therefore out of scope. Also, what we were intending to model in the IAP was primarily two-dimensional Raster Images. Vector and other three-dimensional image types may also be able to use the IAP, but this would require further research into potentially other specific metadata needs, and thus out of the scope of this project.

Functional Requirements

   - Free text search
     In scope

   - Filter data on a range of elements including: 
     date In scope
     location In scope
     creator In scope
     subject In scope
     format In scope
     size In scope

   - Highlight open access images
     In scope

   - Provide unique reference for all images
     In scope

   - Highlight when high resolution image is available
     In scope

   - Provide terms of use for high resolution image
     In scope

   - Provide costs of publication
     In scope

   - Provide terms of use for all copy images
     In scope

   - Navigate between different versions/images representing the same original work
     In scope

   - Notify of related works to the same piece
     Out of scope

   - How is image used in different contexts, e.g. learning context, course details
     Out of scope 

   - How was the image funded
     In scope

   - Identify the provenance of the image source
     In scope

   - Provide preservation information
     Out of scope
     The IAP can provide basic file information and change history details.  It does not however provide the means to carry out
     digital preservation in any depth.

   - Provide location details for the analogue object in a picture
     In scope

   - Provide a reference to related images
     Out of scope
     The IAP provides the means to relate an image to a larger collection and various manifestations of the same image. It does
     not enable any further relationship references

   - Provide information on image colour
     In scope