Proprietary data formats, undisclosed specifications, partial standardisation, lack of adequate open formats, and the fast obsolescence of hardware, supporting operative systems and software are the major issues undermining both the data survival and reuse. Over-reliance on proprietary solutions, inadequate enrichment of assets with metadata, informal retention policies, idiosyncratic archival and management of data files are also important causes of information loss that occur just at the assets creation stage and that in some cases, such as in the AEC (Architecture Engineering Construction) sector determine economical damages even in the short term.

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The activities of DEDICATE are coming to a conclusion and we are approaching the last initiative of this project – a seminar aimed at discussing the issues and initiatives related to the Information Management of the Built Environment related data. This event will try to present the diverse operative and disciplinary approaches to the curation of the digital information concerning Architecture to demonstrate the cultural and technical convergence of the initiatives in this field and propose a common agenda to tackle both its shared problems and its discipline specific issues.

Are solutions at the intersections between domains?

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Understanding the curation of Built Environment related data, and especially CAD files, as a legal and cultural responsibility of their producers implies to rethink the competences attached to professional roles and investigation activities adopting these technologies.

In the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) sector, regulators and control authorities worldwide are urging enhanced control over exchange formats and information authoritativeness. Entirely digital phenomena such as Parametric and Procedural Design, Collaborative and Concurrent practices, open source Design exchange and object oriented modelling demand data legal management, open standard compliance, code annotation (for software migration and exchange) and contextual data enrichment of Designers.

Are those new competences provided in Higher Education?

Referring in particular to the Architecture, is Architects vocational training already addressing these renovated aspects of the professional knowledge basis?

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"In the last five years, the College of Arts has engaged with over 400 organisations from the Private and Public sectors, worldwide. These partnerships have encompassed a range of activities including student internships, sponsored postgraduate scholarships, continued professional development and, of course, contract and/or collaborative research" (from the website of the Arts KE Industry Day 2013). In an age of scarce public investment in the Arts and Humanities these initiatives actually constitute the possibility for many researchers to experiment new research directions aiming at a wider impact beyond the academic community. For Universities, Knowledge Exchange (KE) programmes offer also a novel meter to measure their prestige against both their attractiveness for investments and their influence on the general public.

On the 31st of May, the College of Art of the University of Glasgow celebrated its first KE Industry Day presenting case studies introduced by experts from the Arts, Cultural and Creative sectors. In this occasion, the case studies have been split in 8 thematic groups: Cultural Education, Digital, Dress & Textiles, Film & Broadcasting, Heritage, Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Writing & Publishing.

I have been invited to present for the Digital Theme, DEDICATE and the Design Digital Curation (DIDECU) KE project, a previous research I co-investigated with Dr Ian Anderson, between 2010 and 2011.

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As the design processes in architectural practices switch toward entirely digital workflows, architects are gradually required, because of their legal and commercial liability, to provide for both a relatively long term curation of their own digital products and the deposit of authoritative data. But, despite being the sole curation actors for their data, architects receive little education or training in either pertinent competences nor agreed and established procedures to comply with these duties.

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