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Overview

Use of email permeates all aspects of modern life and scholarship.  Email increasingly forms significant parts of Library collections and records programs.  Specialized attention is necessary to ensure the long-term stewardship of these materials.  Digital Preservation Services (DPS) is hosting an email archiving training cohort for Harvard staff from fall Fall 2024 - winter Winter 2025. The cohort will be limited to 20 participants to facilitate focused discussions, live workshops, and to streamline resolution of technical issues.

The training plan is comprised of:

• An online, asynchronous curriculum aimed at establishing a baseline knowledge for all participants
• Two live, half-day ePADD workshops to provide hands-on tool practice
• An optional final presentation on depositing email collections from ePADD to the DRS
• Three cohort meetings where participants can share questions, experience, workflows, and policies

The objectives of the this training cohort are:

• Expand our knowledge base for email archiving challenges, opportunities, tools (including ePADD, HL's recommended email archiving solution), and techniques 
• Train staff on how to use ePADD to appraise, process, preserve, and facilitate access to email collections 
• Demonstrate how to ingest an ePADD package into the DRS for preservation 
• Trial a targeted training curriculum for born-digital upskilling 
• Nurture a born-digital community of practice through the cohort

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• Participants acquire a deeper understanding of how to steward email in their collections, including how to use tools to acquire, appraise, process, preserve, and offer discovery and access for users 
• Learning materials are documented and recorded to enable future reference and asynchronous participation for all staff members 
  • Note: This only applies to the live trainings and presentations, and there will be privacy options for staff that prefer not to be recorded - cohort-specific meetings will not be recorded 
• Future born-digital training efforts will be equipped with a pilot cohort and training curriculum to build and iterate on for an emerging community of practice

The training plan is comprised of:

• An online, asynchronous curriculum aimed at establishing a baseline knowledge of email archiving for all participants
• Two live, half-day ePADD workshops to provide hands-on tool practice
• An optional final presentation on depositing email collections from ePADD to the DRS
• Three cohort meetings where participants can share questions, experience, workflows, and policies

...

• October 9, 2024: Cohort launch meeting (1.5 hours)
• October – December 2024: Complete the Digital Preservation Coalition's Knowledge-to-Know-How: Email Archiving online curriculum in the Harvard Training Portal (estimated ~18 hours)
• December 11, 2024: Cohort meeting (1.5 hours)
• January 15, 2025: (OPTIONAL) ePADD installation office hours (1 hour)  ( Perhaps offer two sessions?  One in the AM and one in the PM to provide scheduling flexibility )
• January 29, 2025: ePADDworkshop: Part 1 (4 hours)
• February 12, 2025: ePADDworkshop: Part 2  (4 hours)
• February 19, 2025: (OPTIONAL) ePADD to DRS deposit presentation (1 hour) 
• March 5, 2025: Final cohort meeting (1.5 hours)

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• Completion of the online DPC curriculum (estimated ~18 hours over 3 months)
• Attendance at all cohort meetings and both ePADD workshop days (5 meetings total over 5 months)

Technical

Note: You do not need to download ePADD prior to enrolling, just confirm that you will be able to comply with the installation needs Please install ePADD on your laptop or desktop prior to the first ePADD workshop in January.  This will allow the workshop time to be used most productively.

• Ability to download and use ePADD on a laptop to complete workshop activities, which requires:

  • Operation System: 64-bit, Windows 7 SP1 / 10, Mac OS X 10.13 / 10.14, Ubuntu 16.04 

  • Memory:  > 8 GB RAM 

  • Browser/s:  Chrome 68 or later, Firefox 59 or later

  • Java: Java Runtime Environment 64-bit, version 11 or later required for ePADD version 10 alpha.

• Admin privileges might be required - please consult your local IT group
• Review further information on installing ePADD here: https://www.epaddproject.org/using-epadd/user-guide

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The short answer is: we do not know, but we hope so! This initial training cohort will help the library Library calibrate what works well and what could work better for future opportunities.

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