This article introduces the challenge of digital preservation in the area of engineering design and manufacturing and presents a methodology to apply knowledge representation and semantic techniques to develop Digital Engineering Archives. This work is part of an ongoing, multiuniversity, effort to create cyber infrastructure-based engineering repositories for undergraduates (CIBER-U) to support engineering design education. The technical approach is to use knowledge representation techniques to create formal models of engineering data elements, workflows and processes. With these formal engineering knowledge and processes can be captured and preserved with some guarantee of long-term interpretability.

This article introduces the challenge of digital preservation in the area of engineering design and manufacturing and presents a methodology to apply knowledge representation and semantic techniques to develop Digital Engineering Archives. This work is part of an ongoing, multiuniversity, effort to create cyber infrastructure-based engineering repositories for undergraduates (CIBER-U) to support engineering design education. The technical approach is to use knowledge representation techniques to create formal models of engineering data elements, workflows and processes. With these formal engineering knowledge and processes can be captured and preserved with some guarantee of long-term interpretability. The article presents examples of how the techniques can be used to encode specific engineering information packages and workflows. These techniques are being integrated into a semantic wiki that supports the CIBER-U engineering education activities across nine universities and involving over 3500 students since 2006.

This paper introduces the challenge of digital preservation in the   area of engineering design and manufacturing and presents a   methodology to apply knowledge representation and semantic   techniques to develop Digital Engineering Archives.  This work   is part of an ongoing, multi-university, effort to create   Cyber-Infrastructure-Based Engineering Repositories for   Undergraduates (CIBER-U) to support engineering design education.   The technical approach is to use knowledge representation techniques   to create formal models of engineering data elements, workflows and   processes.  With these formal engineering knowledge and processes   can be captured and preserved with some guarantee of long-term   interpretability.  The paper presents examples of how the techniques   can be used to encode specific engineering information     packages and workflows.  These techniques are being integrated   into a semantic Wiki that supports the CIBER-U engineering education   activities across nine universities and involving over 3,500   students since 2006.