IDKM Project Roadmap

IDKM Working Party Roadmap
Information, Data and Knowledge

Management (IDKM)
Roadmap
Document preparation
Prepared by: IDKM Workshop Programme Committee and NEA Secretariat
Date: 18 October 2019
Status: Draft 6
Note: Final draft for distribution
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Executive Summary
This document presents the roadmap of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Information, Data and
Knowledge Management (IDKM) Working Party (WP). The WP-IDKM has a three year mandate from
the NEA Radioactive Waste Management Committee (RWMC) with its first meeting scheduled for
January 2020.
The IDKM Roadmap has been produced in order to define and disseminate, at a high-level, NEA’s
future activities in the field of IDKM for radioactive waste management (RWM), including geological
disposal.
IDKM has a particularly important role in RWM as a result of the volume and multidisciplinary nature
of the specialist data required, the requirement to operate within robust regulatory frameworks, and
the need for information to remain accessible for very significant periods of time. Records must be
well structured, with metadata included to justify decisions made and demonstrate that processes
have been followed correctly, and detailed knowledge passed across subsequent generations of
worker to ensure continued safely. Geological disposal facilities will need to operate for in excess of
one hundred years, during which time information systems are likely to change many times, and
present day media and file formats may become obsolete and unsupported. After closure of a facility,
information on its location, design and inventory may need to be retained for many thousands of years
to retain confidence in its safety, over which time societies and their institutions and archives may
change significantly or cease to exist. Taken together, these aspects give RWM unique challenges in
IDKM.
Across the world many countries are managing radioactive waste, with a number finding that records
created during the nuclear expansion are inadequate, and with many workers now reaching or in
retirement. Some countries are actively pursuing licensing for geological disposal facilities, and once
approved will begin creating the records about their ‘as-built’ facilities. Others are at varying stages in
siting processes, with building and retaining stakeholder confidence a key concern. Improvements to
IDKM will therefore be of immediate benefit to RWM organisations.
With 33 member countries, covering approximately 82% of the world’s installed nuclear capability, the
NEA is ideally placed to coordinate activities on IDKM, allowing members to share their experiences
and collaborate to develop new approaches tailored to the needs of organisations which manage
radioactive waste. Two key principles of the working party are that specialists will be involved from
outside the nuclear industry, so that the project learns from the latest developments in technology and
non-nuclear fields, and that a holistic view is taken, informed by the work of other NEA groups such
as the IGSC, nuclear databank and the forum for stakeholder confidence.
In recent years, the RWMC has demonstrated its commitment to IDKM through the introduction of
three working groups:
 the “Radioactive Waste Repository Metadata Management (RepMet)” initiative (2014-18);
 the “Preservation of Records, Knowledge and Memory (RK&M) across Generations” initiative
(Phase I: 2011-14, Phase II: 2014-18); and
 the Expert Group on Inventorying Reporting Methodology (EGIRM) (Phase I: 2014-16, Phase
II: 2017-18).
Each group focussed on different aspects within the varied field of IDKM, namely on the role of
metadata in RWM, the preservation of RK&M over very long periods of time and the identification of
common approaches to report inventory information. All three working groups have recently
completed their activities, with proposed future work identified in many cases.
In January 2019, the RWMC organised an IDKM Workshop with two objectives:
 to present and publicise the conclusions and deliverables of the RepMet, RK&M and EGIRM
groups; and
 to explore current needs, activities and challenges that implementers, regulators and other
stakeholders within RWM are experiencing in the field of IDKM.
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RWM implementers, nuclear regulators, research establishments (including universities and technical
support organisations) and archivists were represented at the workshop, together with specialists in
data and information management from both RWM and non-RWM sectors, and experienced
knowledge managers involved with information management over all timescales.
Information gathered from participants at the workshop, together with the proposed future work of
NEA’s past working groups, has been used to assemble this roadmap. Production of the roadmap has
been managed by the Programme Committee (PC) of the workshop, which includes representatives
of the NEA Secretariat and the past NEA groups described above.
The IDKM Roadmap structures the IDKM work of interest to the RWM community through four main
working areas (WAs). Each WA includes list of well-defined activities which include a description,
possible deliverables, effort required, dependencies with other projects both in NEA (for example, the
IGSC) and outside (for example, the IAEA or European Commission) and a rationale for inclusion
explaining the expected benefit to the RWM community. The four WAs and their corresponding
queries are as follows:
 Safety Case – What data, information and knowledge needs preserving and how should it be
structured to ensure continued confidence in safety cases?
 Knowledge Management – How should knowledge be documented, managed and
transmitted to ensure it retains its value across generations (including, but not limited to, from
one generation of worker to the next)?
 Archiving – How do organisations archive information without losing fidelity and readability,
and pass it to national archives?
 Awareness Preservation – What strategies can help to preserve knowledge and memory
over long time scales when societies and their institutions may have significantly changed or
no longer exist?
The main body of this document introduces and explains activities, potential deliverables and benefits
at a high-level. The appendix provides more detailed information on each proposed activity.
By joining the WP-IDKM, organisations will be able to participate in, and influence the direction of, the
WAs and activities described in this roadmap. In doing so, they will stay up to date in the latest
developments in IDKM and their applicability to RWM, begin to develop answers to issues raised by
organisations and the wider stakeholder community at the IDKM workshop, and learn from the
practical experience of others. This investment of effort is one that will provide not only rapid progress
but also solutions that are harmonised and internationally reviewed and by the participating parties.
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List of Contents
1 Background ........................................................................................................ 7
1.1 IDKM in the nuclear sector ............................................................................... 7
1.2 IDKM in Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) ............................................ 7
2 RWMC in the IDKM ............................................................................................ 9
3 Scope of this document .................................................................................... 9
4 Roadmap structure .......................................................................................... 10

4.1 Working Area 1: Safety Case ......................................................................... 11
4.1.1 Background ................................................................................................... 11
4.1.2 Scope ............................................................................................................ 11
4.1.3 Core Activities ................................................................................................ 12
4.1.4 Supporting Activities ...................................................................................... 16
4.2 Working Area 2: Knowledge Management (KM) ............................................ 21
4.2.1 Background ................................................................................................... 21
4.2.2 Scope ............................................................................................................ 21
4.2.3 Activities ........................................................................................................ 21
4.3 Working Area 3: Archiving .............................................................................. 23
4.3.1 Background ................................................................................................... 23
4.3.2 Scope ............................................................................................................ 23
4.3.3 Activities ........................................................................................................ 23
4.4 Working Area 4: Awareness Preservation ...................................................... 26
4.4.1 Background ................................................................................................... 26
4.4.2 Scope ............................................................................................................ 26
4.4.3 Activities ........................................................................................................ 26
5 Work Breakdown Structure ............................................................................ 27
6 References ....................................................................................................... 28
Appendix A – Detailed Activities .......................................................................... 29

WA1 Safety Case................................................................................................. 29
WA1.1 - Core activities .......................................................................................... 29
WA1.2 Supporting activities ................................................................................... 30
WA2 Knowledge Management (KM) .................................................................... 32
WA2.1 KM Strategies............................................................................................. 32
WA2.2 KM Tools .................................................................................................... 34
WA3 - Archiving ................................................................................................... 36
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WA3.1 - Record archiving ...................................................................................... 36

WA3.2 - Archiving Electronic Records.................................................................... 38
WA4 - Awareness Preservation ........................................................................... 41
WA4.1 - Participatory mechanisms ........................................................................ 41
WA4.2 - Records ................................................................................................... 42
WA4.3 - Complementary analysis .......................................................................... 42
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List of Abbreviations
NEA Nuclear Energy Agency

IDKM Information, Data and Knowledge Management
RWM Radioactive Waste Management
RD&D Research-Development-and-Demonstration
RWMC Radioactive Waste Management Committee
RepMet Radioactive Waste Repository Metadata Management
RK&M Preservation of Records, Knowledge and Memory across Generations
EGIRM Expert Group on Waste Inventorying and Reporting Methodology
TSO Technical Supporting Organisations
PC Programme Committee
RWMO Radioactive Waste Management Organisation
KM Knowledge Management
WP-IDKM Working Party on Information, Data and Knowledge Management
HLW High Level Waste
DGR Deep geological repository
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1 Background
1.1 IDKM in the nuclear sector

In recent years, information, data and knowledge management (IDKM) has been acquiring an
increasingly important role in society, with several analysts arguing that many modern societies are
moving from a production-based to a knowledge-based economy (Drucker, 1993). Reliable and
effective IDKM has therefore become a crucial challenge in all sectors of industry, including
Research, Development-and-Demonstration (RD&D) and fundamental science. Moreover, the core
value of many businesses is the creation or collection of information, data and knowledge. The
requirements for effective IDKM systems depend on the size, complexity and duration of a project,
and new integrated approaches from the point of view of both human resource management and
computer science technology may be beneficial. Across the world, IDKM experts are currently
working on the development of tools and techniques to tackle the challenges of this new information,
data and knowledge-based society.
The production of energy from nuclear materials, and subsequent radioactive waste management, is
very much a knowledge-dependent activity. The nuclear sector is therefore particularly susceptible to
IDKM challenges, with the majority of data, information and knowledge in nuclear technology and
science having been built around the globe since the 1950s (Gulliford, 2016). The pioneering nuclear
generation has now retired and the generation trained during the nuclear expansion period are
approaching their retirement age. New generations have to be trained now in order to maintain and
enhance their knowledge and technical expertise for the continued safe use of nuclear technology.
With this ageing experienced workforce, there is a high risk of an inadequate transfer of knowledge to
the next generation with potential for loss of the implicit knowledge1 that the previous nuclear
generations acquired at great effort and costs. Moreover, data, information and explicit knowledge2,
now often stored on electronic media, need to be managed in a careful way to ensure they remain
accessible as technologies (including storage media and file formats) are likely to change significantly
over the typical timescales of nuclear projects.
This is a crucial historical moment for nuclear sector to focus the attention on the IDKM in order to
avoid “reinventing the nuclear wheel” in future. The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), with its
members among the most advanced nuclear countries, is an international platform for scientific
cooperation and knowledge sharing that is ideal to investigate practices, policies and guidelines to
manage in a proper way the data, information and knowledge related to the use of nuclear energy.
1.2 IDKM in Radioactive Waste Management (RWM)

Many countries are implementing strategies for the permanent disposal of radioactive waste through
geological disposal, and are currently assembling the scientific underpinning to demonstrate that such
facilities will be safe during both operations and after closure. Radioactive waste management (RWM)
is particularly demanding in the area of IDKM due to:
 The volume and multidisciplinary nature of the specialist information, data and knowledge
produced;
 The requirement to operate within robust regulatory frameworks;
 The extended duration of national programmes, with geological disposal facilities often
planned to operate for in excess of one hundred years; and
 The need to preserve records for very long periods of time to ensure the confidence of future
societies.
In countries with all sizes of nuclear programme, RWM involves complex projects involving many
stakeholders and disciplines. Stakeholders include implementers, regulators, governments, inter-
governmental bodies, public partnerships, academia, Technical Support Organisations (TSOs), while
disciplines include engineering, physics, chemistry, geoscience, project and contract management,
1 “Implicit knowledge”, or “tacit knowledge”, is a type of knowledge generally gained through experience in a field,
during which wider context is learned, similar problems viewed and learning obtained from peers. Often not
directly appreciated, it is difficult to be preserved and transferred.
2 “Explicit knowledge” is a type of knowledge that can be embedded in paper documents or electronic files.
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social science and stakeholder engagement. Large volumes of varied data, information and
knowledge have to be properly managed and structured, with metadata included to justify decisions
made and demonstrate that processes have been followed correctly.
Time is a particularly significant factor in RWM as national programmes tend to run for very long
periods of time; several hundred years can pass between the generation of nuclear waste to its final
disposal in a geological repository with many activities and decisions taken during this time. During
this time several generations of workers will be part of the programme, and the information, data and
knowledge that previous generations have created needs to remain accessible and understandable to
ensure continued safety. Ownership of the associated records may also pass between organisations
during this period, for example from a nuclear power plant operator, to a geological disposal
implementer to an archive over this time. After the closure of a repository, future generations also
require sufficient information to retain confidence in the safety of the facility and to be able to make
their own informed decisions (NEA Radioactive Waste Management Committee (RWMC), 2014). This
preservation requires not only technical effort, but also a consideration of the social and human
consideration when preserving radioactive waste repository memory.
Figure 1 provides an overview of the activities and decision points in the lifecycle of such a facility and
identifies the timescales of interest to the related IDKM.
Figure 1 The lifecycle of a geological repository

As in the wider nuclear sector, RWM is also often associated with an ageing workforce with the same
risks of inadequate transfer of knowledge and technical expertise. The challenges associated with the
preservation of digital records is likely to be even greater as a result of the increased time periods.
The nuclear sector has already experienced issues associated with poor IDKM, with the
consequences of inadequate record-keeping still felt. Examples include loss of information: on the
design of reactors leading to difficulty in decommissioning; on the contents of waste packages leading
to increased safety case conservatisms or unnecessary assaying; or on the loss of the rationales for
technical choices and decisions about packaging and disposal concepts leading to impaired
stakeholder confidence.
In conclusion, the realisation of deep geological repositories (DGRs) are first-of-a kind projects, and
such projects tend to involve greater uncertainties related to IDKM due to a lack of standardised
approaches and collective experience.
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2 RWMC involvement in IDKM

The NEA Radioactive Waste Management Committee (RWMC) has demonstrated a strong interest
and commitment to bringing about a better understanding of IDKM in the field of RWM. Under its
auspices, three different groups have previously worked in the IDKM area and individually produced
significant outcomes and deliverables. The three groups, which terminated their activities in 2018,
were:
 the “Radioactive Waste Repository Metadata Management (RepMet)” initiative (2014-18)3;
 the “Preservation of Records, Knowledge and Memory (RK&M) across Generations” initiative
(Phase I: 2011-14, Phase II: 2014-18)4; and
 the Expert Group on Inventorying Reporting Methodology (EGIRM) (Phase I: 2014-16, Phase
II: 2017-18)5.
Each group focussed on different aspects within the varied field of IDKM. The RepMet initiative
investigated the role of metadata, a fundamental tool of modern data and information management, in
structuring information related to radioactive waste to keep it accessible and understandable. RK&M
developed a set of synergic and varied approaches to support society in preserving records,
knowledge and memory about a radioactive waste repository for very long periods of time. EGIRM
developed an innovative methodology to present information on national inventories for radioactive
waste and spent nuclear fuel in a common and consistent format. In many cases groups identified
proposed future work in light of the experience gained to date.
In 2018, after the conclusion of the three groups, the RMWC looked to collect recommendations and
suggestions from member countries on future activities in the field of IDKM which would benefit RWM.
To ensure sufficient time for discussion and a free exchanges of ideas, RWMC organised a dedicated
open workshop at the NEA Offices in Boulogne-Billancourt on 22-24 January 2019. This workshop,
called “Workshop on Information, Data and Knowledge Management” also provided an opportunity to
present the final deliverables and outcomes of the past groups publically.
In advance of the IDKM Workshop, the Programme Committee (PC), which was composed of
members from RepMet, RK&M and EGIRM, prepared a first draft of this roadmap document
populated with proposed outstanding work from each group, to provide a basis for discussion (the
ante-workshop version). The content of this document was discussed during the workshop’s sessions
leading to a better understanding of what work would benefit member countries. Workshop
participants recognised the importance of further work in IDKM leading to a recommendation that
RWMC continues to support work in the field of IDKM for RWM through a new dedicated initiative
which would bring together and extend its past work in this field.
All inputs received during the workshop were included in a new version of the IDKM Roadmap (post-
workshop version), i.e. this document.
As a result of the strong interest demonstrated by the RWM community and the recommendations
received in the IDKM Workshop, the RWMC approved the establishment of a Working Party (WP) on
IDKM on 19 April 2019 during its 52nd plenary meeting.
The WP will support RWMC and provide advice across the entire spectrum of IDKM for RWM, from
cradle to grave (and beyond in the case of disposal records).
3 Scope of this document

This document is the post-workshop version of the IDKM Roadmap which contains all
recommendations and suggestions gathered during the event.
The main aim of the Roadmap is to provide RWMC with a high-level picture of NEA’s proposed future
work in IDKM and to allow member countries to identify their interest and involvement in the WP. It
introduces and explains proposed activities, including a description and rationale, and identifies
3 https://www.oecd-nea.org/rwm/igsc/repmet
4 https://www.oecd-nea.org/rwm/rkm
5 https://www.oecd-nea.org/rwm/egirm
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potential benefits. The appendix provides more detailed information on each proposed activity,
including an estimation of the required resources, dependencies and potential deliverables.
The IDKM Roadmap is the result of joint efforts involving the NEA secretariat, members of the IDKM
Workshop PC and all those who expressed an interest in the kick-off of new projects in IDKM in the
NEA and RWMC framework.
In the future, the WP-IDKM will own the IDKM roadmap, manage its evolution and delivery, and co-
ordinate all activities which are carried out under its auspices. As an initial task, the WP would be
expected to review the activities contained within this roadmap, test estimated resources, identify
delivery mechanisms (for example Contractors) and produce a Gantt chart consistent with the
available budget and prioritisation.
4 Roadmap structure
The IDKM Roadmap is structured against four Working Areas (WAs), as illustrated in Figure 2 and
described in Table 1. Activities corresponding to each of the four working areas are explained in the
remainder of this document.
Figure 2: Working Areas covered in the IDKM Roadmap
Table 1: Working Area Topics
Working Area Broad Topic

What data, information and knowledge needs preserving and how
Safety Case should it be structured to ensure continued confidence in safety
cases?
How should knowledge be documented, managed and transmitted to
Knowledge
ensure it retains its value across generations (including, but not
Management
limited to, from one generation of worker to the next)?
How do organisations archive information without losing fidelity and
Archiving
readability and pass it to national archive?
What strategies can help to preserve knowledge and memory over
Awareness
long time scales when societies and their institutions may have
Preservation
significantly changed or no longer exist?
The safety case working area therefore broadly concerns the creation and structuring of the
information needed to manage radioactive waste appropriately. In the sense of Figure 1 this covers
the short term timescale encompassing the pre-operational and operational phases. The knowledge
management and archiving working groups cover the short term and medium term timescales (with
knowledge management activities becoming more limited in the early medium term), while the
awareness preservation working group extends investigation of IDKM practices into the long term6.
Unlike the previous work, the WP-IDKM therefore has a mandate and programme which covers all
timescales of RWM, thereby helping to ensure consistent products across all timescales.
6 Though on a reduced volume of information, see Figure 8 in Section 4.3.3.
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4.1 Working Area 1: Safety Case

4.1.1 Background
Large volumes of data, information and knowledge are required to carry out the safety analysis for a
radioactive waste storage or disposal facility. This analysis is detailed in a safety case, which is a set
of evolving documentation, updated throughout the lifecycle of the facility, to demonstrate the safety
of that facility. It is important that the safety case remains available and accessible, both during
planning and operations, and long into the future, for stakeholders to have confidence in the safety of
the facility and to support informed decision making 7. Throughout the pre-closure period, as designs
are developed and geological investigations progress, the available information will increase in type,
detail and volume. This includes information on the disposal system itself, including inventory,
engineered barriers and geology, how these work together to ensure safety, and also on the decisions
taken throughout the development process, whose rationale must be captured and set into context.
Failure to preserve this information introduces the risk of the loss of confidence of Regulators, the
public or other stakeholders, together with the associated financial and resource cost of re-work.
4.1.2 Scope
The Working Area 1 (WA1), i.e. Safety Case, of the IDKM Roadmap includes activities to help
RWMOs describe and better understand the data and the information they hold and process relating
to radioactive waste and geological disposal in support of a safety case8 (or more generally of a waste
management case).
The proposed work is separated into a set of “core activities” and a set of “supporting activities” that
act as enablers to these. The following core activities are envisaged:
• Improvements to RWMC’s existing libraries, i.e. the RepMet Libraries, to describe elements of
disposal facilities, waste packaging plants or other systems of interest to RWMOs;
• Production of tools to help model the process of producing a safety case;
• An investigation into the properties and benefits of a digital safety case and how this may aid
change control and configuration management of the safety case
Together, these activities are intended to help RWMOs better understand and manage their safety
case and thereby move toward a ‘live’ safety case.
In all activities, a key aim is to ensure data and information is captured ‘intelligently’ so that the links
between different pieces of information are clear, unambiguous and can be understood in future – as
RepMet has shown the incorporation of machine readable metadata plays an important role in this.
Throughout all activities consideration will be given to consistency with the Set of Essential Records
(SER) with metadata introduced to identify such.
To carry out the core activities introduced above (further details on these below) a number of
supporting activities are envisaged:
• A review of existing approaches (for example BIM9) and standards (for example XPDL10,
BPMN11) which have been created to allow processes to be modelled, included consideration of
their suitability to application to RWMOs (such as a safety case flowchart or operation of a waste
packaging plant);
7 Foundations and guiding principles for the preservation of records, knowledge and memory across generations:
A focus on the post-closure phase of geological repositories. A Collective Statement of the NEA Radioactive
Waste Management Committee, 2014. Available at https://www.oecd-nea.org/rwm/rkm/documents/flyer-A4-rkm-
collective-statement-en-2014.pdf.
8 Note that there may be needs to preserve information which is not formally part of the Safety Case, e.g. if
required by stakeholders. It is likely that these requirements would be specific to a country or community.
although such information is intended to fall within the scope of this Working Area, the name ‘Safety Case’ has
been adopted recognising that the vast majority of information needed is expected to be part of a Safety Case.
9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_information_modeling
10 XML Process Definition Language (XPDL).
11 Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN).
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• An investigation into the ability of common, general purpose, file formats (such as JPEG and
PDF/A to hold arbitrary files and custom metadata) – potentially focussing on XMP – and their
potential role in RWMOs;
• The creation of an NEA data and metadata library and vocabulary server to act as a reference for
NEA’s (meta)data models and taxonomies, allowing them to be viewed online and downloaded in
standards compliant formats; and
• The creation of a community of practice to advise other NEA working parties and committees on
good practice around data and metadata, and to roll standards based approaches to their work.
The core and supporting activities introduced above will now be discussed at a high-level; full details
on proposed individual tasks will be maintained by individual expert groups under the direction of the
WP-IDKM; initial proposals are provided in Appendix.
4.1.3 Core Activities
4.1.3.1 Improvements to NEA’s Existing Data and Metadata Libraries
Under the RepMet initiative, NEA produced a number of libraries, containing data models associated
properties (vocabularies). The libraries considered to date cover: radioactive waste packages, the
engineering of a geological repository and information on geology. Together these three libraries are
intended to provide a ‘system description’ for a repository (but not the process used to generate these
– see Section 4.1.3.2).
The libraries above have differing levels of maturity and completeness, with some making use of
existing standards (such as INSPIRE or O&M), and others being created by RepMet. Although the
core principles behind each library are sound, further work is required to mature the products
themselves and to connect with other NEA work. The intention, at completion is that:
 Each library consists of a peer reviewed data model and hierarchical list (taxonomy) of properties;
 Each property is associated with:
o A formal, unambiguous, definition (vocabulary) consistent, where possible, with the IAEA
glossary;
o A persistent resolvable identifier through an NEA namespace;
o A dimensionality (for example a length, volume or activity);
o A justification for why a value for the property may be required (for example, linking to a
transport, operational or post-closure safety case information need); and
o The potential consequences of a value not being known (for example, a conservative
assumption may need to be made in a safety case leading to reduced facility capacity).
The final two bullets above would naturally be satisfied though collaboration with other NEA
groups, for example the latest International FEP List produced by the IGSC FEP Task Group
containing a field on ‘Relevance to Performance and Safety’, while the IGSC Expert Group on
Operational Safety (EGOS) could provide information on operational safety needs and
implications. Links to parameter values would also be provided where available in NEA
database, for example, the thermodynamic database (TDB) or the NEA nuclear databank (see
Section 4.1.4.5 for a means to coordinate this). This provides a more holistic consideration by
NEA.
 Each library has appropriately “meshes” with other libraries to ensure each may be used
together.
 Each library has reference examples to help RWMOs in the use of the libraries.
 A governance process and versioning system has been set up to allow the ‘standard’ defined by
the libraries to evolve with time as needs change or errors and omissions are identified. This is
envisaged to take place through a steering group.
It is important to realise that the list above is not intended to be prescriptive, in that all RWMOs should
be collecting information on each property listed – different disposal sites and wastes will have
different needs – and it is difficult for an international project ever to claim to be complete. What the
libraries do, however, is to act much like a cataloguing system for a library, thereby providing a place
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for each new piece of information needed, and guidance when deciding what information is required
(and the implications of not doing so) when assembling their project-specific lists (much like the
screening process organisation use against the NEA international FEP List).
This task aims to increase the completeness and maturity of each existing RepMet Library by
developing the aspects above, through cooperation with other NEA groups and its supply chain.
4.1.3.2 Safety Case Modelling
As discussed in Section 4.1.3.1 the existing data and metadata libraries have largely focussed on the
system description for an “as-built” geological repository. One of the recommendations of the RepMet
initiative was that any future work should look at the production of a library to describe the safety
assessment process, including the rationale for decisions made and the relationships between
different information sources considered.
The IDKM project will need to determine whether any other additional libraries would also be of use to
RWMOs, for example to describe operations in waste processing, treatment, packaging or storage
plants, transport, non-conformities, legacy waste package records or similar.
The NEA Methods of Safety Assessment project (MESA) describes a methodology for safety
assessment (see, for example, Figure 3 and Figure 4). This task is intended to produce a safety
assessment library against the MESA methodology and to express it using an appropriate modelling
language (see Section 4.1.4.1). As will be seen from Figure 3 and Figure 4, a number of components
will be required – for example to describe numerical models, data and uncertainty, safety functions,
FEPs and scenario development processes and similar, together with the relationships between
these. It is anticipated that this task would be run in close collaboration with IGSC and its groups.
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Figure 3 NEA Methods of Safety Assessment (MESA) Safety Case Flow Chart
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Figure 4 NEA Methods of Safety Assessment (MESA) Safety Case Flow Chart
(Expansion of Shaded Section of Figure 3)

4.1.3.3 Digital Safety Case
Safety cases have traditionally tended to be long hierarchical suites of documents assembled in Word
Processors and published in either PDF or paper format. Top-level documents in this suite generally
introduce high-level safety claims and argue how these, taken together, comply with appropriate
national and international regulations. Each safety claim may be logically decomposed into sub-claims
and related to evidence, from research programmes, site characterisation and similar, through safety
arguments for particular waste inventories, disposal concepts and engineered barrier systems.
Detailed evidence is generally provided in lower lever, domain-specific documents in the document
suite, referenced from elsewhere in the suite. Such links are generally provided through bibliographic
references to particular versions of individual documents. In this sense documents implicitly contain
additional information which could be encoded more richly, for example terms from a glossary or
controlled vocabulary could contain a ‘digital pointer’ (through metadata) to such lists, graphs could
point to the datasets or model runs from which they were created, evidence linked to research
documents and similar. These pointers could then, for example, be used to facilitate search in
documents (for example, to demonstrate where each FEP is considered), provide hover-help for
glossary terms, or to provide clickable hyperlinks to related content, thereby making the safety case
easier to both navigate and check. Such pointers may naturally be interpreted differently in different
types of output, for example so that a reference becomes a hyperlink in a web-based output, but a
bibliographic reference in equivalent PDF output.
This task would begin to consider what a digital safety case would look like and what features,
benefits and challenges it would introduce. Two particular principles will be embedded: single source
publishing, so that content can be used in multiple types of output media, and linked data, where each
link contains a digital pointer of the type described above. A further key consideration of this task is
how digital safety approaches could benefit change and configuration control of the safety case, with
the potential to move toward a genuinely live safety case, together with guidance on the strategies
RWMOs should adopt in order to migrate to a digital safety case.
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It is anticipated that this task would be run in close collaboration with IGSC and its groups.
4.1.4 Supporting Activities
4.1.4.1 Process Modelling
As discussed in Section 4.1.3.2, many of the activities carried out by RWMOs are underpinned by
methodologies, which are expressed in the form of defined processes. These are often described in
operating descriptions for plants, management systems, safety cases or other technical documents,
and may include graphical representations such as flow-charts. To date NEA’s activities on modelling
have tended to focus on objects (for example the data and metadata needed to describe a waste
package) and not on the processes used to create these, whether temporal or logical. This
information is generally required to understand why a disposal system has been designed in a
particular way and the reason to believe it is safe, as opposed to simply what has been constructed
(Section 4.1.3.1).
As demonstrated by NEA’s RepMet initiative, there are significant benefits to the application of data
modelling techniques to radioactive waste management and geological disposal, though accessible,
graphical, formats must also be provided to suit all audiences.
There are a number of methodologies and standards which may be of benefit include Business
Process Model and Notation (BPMN) (expressed using XML Process Definition Language, XPDL),
Object Process Methodology and Systems engineering (expressed using Unified or Systems
Modelling Language (SysML/UML)). This task would look to bring data modelling experts to review
modelling methodologies and standards in the context of the application to radioactive waste. Chosen
techniques would be applied to sample workflows and processes common to many RWMOs by way
of demonstration. This task thereby supports the core activities identified in Section 4.1.3.
4.1.4.2 Formats
In recent years business processes have become increasingly digital, with well-supported standards
emerging for certain types of content (for example TIFF for images or PDF/A for documents) and text
encodings (for example UTF). While the transition to digital information can bring many benefits over
paper, a number of risks are introduced and thought is needed to ensure that these are managed.
In radioactive waste management programmes, it is often important that information remains readable
for long periods of time, with operational periods spanning many decades, and safety case
information remaining relevant for long after. As a result, it is important for RWMOs to consider the
formats in which information is stored, with open-source, published formats generally accepted as
offering the greatest chance of information being read in future.
This task aims to review existing formats against the needs of RWMO’s and provide guidance where
deficiencies are identified. Areas that will be considered include:
 Guidance on balancing the benefits of new software, offers advanced features, but are in
general specialised and frequently make use of undocumented and inaccessible file formats
(for example 3D CAD or Geographic Information System based format) which challenge long-
term accessibility;
 Archiving information within databases (for example SQL Server) and their relationships;
 Archiving audit trails from workflow systems and digital signatures; and
 Methods to ensure the fidelity of files during storage and on transfer.
Formats that appear to comply with a particular standard may not do so in practice, with opening
applications often coded to work around known bugs or differences. As a result, format validation is
an important step in production and archiving workflows, with a number of tools and applications
produced to help with this, for example, VeraPDF (Figure 5) which has been produced under the EU
Preforma project12. This task will review useful tools and preservation projects, in the context of the
12 http://www.preforma-project.eu
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workflows of RWMO’s, and provide guidance on these. Organisations, for example the Digital
Preservation Coalition13, with relevant information and guidance will also be identified.
Figure 5 VeraPDF is a Free and Open Source Product, Funded by EU, to Check
Compliance with the PDF/A Standard
4.1.4.3 Metadata Storage within Files
A number of file formats, including PDF/A, TIFF and JPEG, support the embedding of custom
metadata. A subset of these, for example PDF/A-3, also support the embedding of arbitrary attached
files. These capabilities have a number of potential uses including: facilitating the submission of
documents to an archive, including additional metadata in a certain class of documents, attaching
original editable files to formatted output (for example XML) and providing resilience to metadata
being lost when transferred out of on-site document management systems. Such metadata can be
populated manually or by automated processes such as data acquisition systems or workflow
engines. Although other standards do exist (for example EXIF), a particularly promising standard is
the ISO standardised Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP). Figure 6 shows a mock-up of a custom
namespace being created to add (fictitious) properties from the NEA’s RepMet and RK&M libraries
added to a PDF file.
This task would look to explore tools and techniques for embedding metadata into files, together with
the potential benefits these may bring to RWMOs and their processes, workflows and archives.
13 https://www.dpconline.org
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Figure 6 Mock-up of PDF File in which Sample XMP Metadata has been Added to
Allow a Document to be Tagged with RepMet and RK&M Metadata
4.1.4.4 Creation of an NEA Data and Metadata Library Server
Deliverables produced under this roadmap include data models and vocabularies – neither of which
are ideally suited to publication in printed reports. A particular success of the RepMet project was the
production of ‘web-products’ (Figure 7), an HTML package which allowed users to navigate the
libraries produced using a graphical interface and to view definitions and the relationships between
elements. Links were provided within the package to equivalent machine-readable renditions of the
content (for example SKOS files) for technical users looking to process or read into other systems,
therefore satisfying multiple audiences. Although the web-products worked well, their production
process was extremely manual and would not scale as NEA’s libraries grow in size and complexity,
where users would expect a more dynamic interface. This task would look to buy or develop a system
to store, display and manage the libraries produced by NEA. Key aspects would include the ability for
users to intuitively explore content and to export in suitable formats for use in RWMOs and for NEA to
update and version content.
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Figure 7 RepMet Web-products

4.1.4.5 NEA Community of Practice on IDKM
IDKM techniques are only of use if applied effectively and consistently. This will fall to RWMOs within
their organisations and guidance is provided on doing so. This activity would initiate a group to
provide advice to other NEA committees and working parties on IDKM and to ensure products
produced elsewhere in NEA make use of appropriate tools, standards and metadata. This in turn
maximises the value and interoperability of NEA’s work. Key projects will be identified by NEA as part
of this task but would be expected to include the IGSC Thermodynamic Database (TDB) and Nuclear
Databank, whose properties and vocabularies would be expected to link to the data models produced
in Section 4.1.3.1, archive ready formats for NEA products and similar. Application of the EGOS
methodology and experiences gained from its application would also be considered under this activity.
4.1.4.6 Legacy Records
Many RWMOs have operated for several decades and have significant quantities of legacy records.
Many of these will be solely in a paper format while others may be digital on aged systems which are
becoming difficult to maintain or are lacking metadata to give context to the information contained. In
many cases, this information may not need to be consulted again, while in others the information may
become key to a future safety case for a repository, for example legacy waste package records. In
this case, information on each waste package would need to be examined against Waste Acceptance
Criteria (WAC) that had been produced against a safety case for a facility. Should non-compliances or
anomalies (for example accidents) be identified, it may be necessary to look in more detail into the
history of the package and the records associated with its production. In an ideal world, this
comparison and any subsequent investigation could be carried out on a digital system with users able
to carry out queries and click to drill-down into detail on processes and assaying techniques. While it
is feasible for future records to be ‘digital by default’, it is not likely to be cost effective nor necessary
to digitise an entire archive of legacy records – at the same time however the conversion of some
information in digital format is likely to be useful, for example during production of safety cases.
This task would look to provide guidance to organisations on how to deal with legacy records,
including:
 How should RWMOs decide when it is sensible to digitise legacy paper records and what
would key components of a business case for doing so be; and
 How should RWMOs deal with data residing on legacy databases and control systems that
are becoming difficult to maintain?
As part of this task, it may be beneficial to develop a data model to describe legacy paper records.
Where organisations have taken to digitise a subset of content, guidance would also be provided on
how to go about doing so technical. This is envisaged to include:
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 A review of possible options for digitisation, including automated scanning, automated

scanning and content recognition, human data entry and the likely success rates of each of
these; and
 A review of systems to automatically classify and organise the contents through adding
metadata (c.f. IAEA’s INIS classification system).
A fuller description of the proposed activities related to this working area is provided in Section WA1
of the Appendix.
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4.2 Working Area 2: Knowledge Management (KM)

4.2.1 Background
According to the glossary of the RK&M initiative, “knowledge is the result of learning processes. Once
acquired in a particular field, knowledge provides insights and skills. It results in the ability to
understand, interpret and use the relevant data, information and records in practice.” Moreover, the
specialised literature defines three types of knowledge: explicit, implicit and tacit knowledge.
Explicit knowledge can be documented in useful forms such as norms, standards, rules, operating
manuals and similar. It can be described and embedded in documents (paper or electronic) that have
to be managed in a ‘time-proof’. Electronic records in particular can rely on technologies that can
become obsolete quickly leading to a risk of loss of access to the contained information if not properly
managed.
Implicit knowledge is the knowledge which has not yet been captured as explicit. It exists in
organizations or teams as shared practice, know how or experience. It can be identified, described
and documented after generalization and systematization by the practitioners.
The tacit knowledge is the knowledge embedded in the human mind and behaviour. It exists as
insight, commitment, thinking, social skills, and similar and is more difficult to be identified, described
and documented.
Knowledge management is an organisation usually goes through the following phases:
 Capture;
 Accessibility;
 Preservation; and
 Exploitation.
One of the main outcomes of the IDKM Workshop is that there is a major concern in RWMOs about
how to manage implicit and tacit knowledge, acquired by current workforce through many years of
service. National programmes for RWM tend to run for decades and worker generations who
launched or actively participated in such programmes retired or are approaching to the retirement
age. New worker generations have to be trained to maintain and enhance the explicit, implicit and
tacit knowledge. A central role in this maintenance is played by the RWM Community of Practice,
which brings together not only staff in RWMOs but also a wide range of stakeholders.
In this framework, it has been recognised that there is a lack of consolidated strategies and
methodologies for RWMOs to transfer knowledge from generation to generation without interruptions,
and ensure a suitably knowledgeable workforce.
4.2.2 Scope
The Working Area 2 (WA2), i.e. Knowledge Management, of the IDKM Roadmap includes activities to
support RWMOs in the definition of efficient and effective strategies for the long-term management of
a knowledgeable workforce.
4.2.3 Activities
The activities in WA2 are structured in two macro-activities:
 Knowledge Management Strategies
 Knowledge Management Tools
RWMOs should implement knowledge management strategies to maximise the chance of maintaining
the knowledge necessary to carry out national RWM programmes. The first macro-activity will be
focused on the creating of such strategies, including techniques for the creation of a culture of
organisational learning within the RWMO and the transfer of knowledge across generations.
Computer science offers tools and techniques that can be used to support the KM strategies in
RWMOs. The second macro-activity deals with the analysis of digital technologies (for example e-
learning or video libraries) and their potential benefit to knowledge management, together with the
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development of RWM specific ontologies. The WP-IDKM will investigate if the application of cognitive
technologies (for example artificial intelligence or machine learning) could be used to bring specific
benefits to RWM and, if so, will recommend to Member States how to take advantage of these. In the
second case, the WP-IDKM will develop a formal ontology and a set of applied ontologies for the
RWM field that can be used as an international reference.
A fuller description of the proposed activities related to this working area is provided in Section WA2
of the Appendix.
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4.3 Working Area 3: Archiving

4.3.1 Background
RWM is a discipline that requires long-term thinking, preserving records and information both for
future generations of workers and future societies. Such long-term thinking relies on archiving for
keeping records, making archiving an essential RWMO activity.
The term “archiving” describes different sets of activities with a similar intent: the preservation of
records and data, dealing with both:
 Storage of records in a national, thematic, or private archive to ensure long-term preservation;
 Storage of digital information with the purpose to keep the information intelligible in the future
by emulation, or migration and updating of file formats as hardware and software develops
(digital preservation).
Different goals may influence the means of archiving as legacy data and records that, even if they are
no longer actively used, continue to be important for the RWMO and should be retained for future
reference in accordance with regulatory compliance.
In this working area of the IDKM Roadmap, archiving is considered as an act of sending a record to
an archive or place of deposit in accordance with relevant national legislation or other considerations,
and also in the technical meaning of the term, as a means of preserving digital records to ensure
continued accessibility. An example of such an activity would include the application of techniques to
preserve a computer database when the associated database software becomes obsolete.
4.3.2 Scope
The Working Area 3 (WA3) of the IDKM Roadmap, i.e. Archiving, identifies activities to assist RWMOs
with their procedures and practices leading up to placing the records in an archive (without including
the same ones that national or other archives perform receiving such records). The WA3 supports
RWMOs in their efforts and research in the archiving areas recommending feasible, resource saving
standards, methods, tools, and consider various roles under various repository phases in the areas of
archiving.
The scope of WA3 includes all types of records that a RWMO can place in archives, including paper-
based documents, objects such as borehole samples, and digital records, digitised documents and
“data born-electronic”, sound recordings, films and similar. The WA3 includes both archiving of
records which are expected to no longer be used during the repository lifetime but could be important
in the future (for example, upon decision of future generations to retrieve the waste), and preservation
of records that are no longer actively used but will likely be needed in the near future of the repository
programme (for example, for the compilation of the next safety case). Moreover, the WA3 includes all
RWMO activities related to archiving, whether these are prescribed by regulators or performed by the
RWMO in its best effort to inform future generations.
4.3.3 Activities
The activities planned in WA3 are ground in two macro-activities:
 General aspects of record archiving; and
 Electronic record archiving.
A complete and detailed description of the proposed activities related to this working area are
provided in Section WA3 of the Appendix. The activities connected to the “record archiving” can be
summarised as follows:
 Digitisation of legacy records - Consider the best practices and sharing of experiences among
RWMOs in planning for, carrying out digitising of legacy records, and updating of the resulting
electronic records (Activity 3.1.1).
 Archiving procedures and accessibility – RWMOs will need to interact with archives in a
number of areas. The record submission procedure is usually well defined, however updating
and making accessible descriptive record sets, such as a Set of Essential Records is an
important aspect to enabling future generations make informed decision and is not a typical
Page 23 of 43
archiving procedure. The question of accessibility is important, as records may not be

available for public use due to copyright or classification issues. Future users of the archive
should also be considered and use-cases defined. Accessibility includes the capability of
finding relevant records in an archive, methods to assist in finding records shall also be
considered (Activity 3.1.2). This activity may also be used to investigate archive management
systems and standards.
 Alternative archiving methods – Archives have their limits in rational usage or may refuse
records not required by legislature, in these cases alternative archives can be considered.
Questions such as how can RWMOs make use of commercial archives (such as MOM), and
what other forms of archiving can complement national archives should be considered. Cost-
efficient forms of archives, such as using time capsules, and the interaction among these
archives should also be thought-out as well as the opportunity of involving local stakeholders,
handover, planning the responsibility to take over the alternative archives (Activity 3.1.3).
 Record selection – The continuation of RK&M’s (an earlier NEA initiative) Set of Essential
Records (SER) workgroup’s activities (Figure 8). Having completed earlier work, further
efforts were deemed necessary in the development of the SER. The activity plans to develop
further the strategic mechanism of the SER, and apply it to concrete national examples. SER
scope also extends to electronic record archiving (Activity 3.1.4).
Figure 8 Hierarchy of DGR records

Analogously, the activities connected to the “electronic record archiving” can be summarised as
follows:
 Relevant standards – Activity plans to assess and identify standards to be applied in archiving
practices and procedures by RWMOs, possible integration or adaptation of standards if
needed (Activity 3.2.1).
 Time dimension – Archiving and preservation methods are very much depending on the
period of time involved. Archiving of records with the hope that these will not be required may
require a different strategy than preserving data that will surely be needed after some time.
The activity shall consider differences between short-term (operational phase) preservation
and long-term archiving strategies. The reprioritisation of information, review process in the
light of data lifetime, the relevancy of the information, lifecycle of the information and its
relevance under the different repository phases (Activity 3.2.2).
 Archiving technical issues – The activity plans on considering the various technical issues of
archiving and preservation strategies required to convert, transfer, store and archive data.
Evolving platforms and data storage methods, different recording media, digital file formats,
relevant hardware for accessing information. Data conversion roles, methods, tools, and
justification of conversion resources. The role of quality assurance in transferring records to
new media, to prevent losing information and quality decline together with their cyber security
considerations. Role of metadata in archiving. Recommendation of consistent tools, and
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methods showing RWMOs what they could be missing. Issues and advantages related to
evolving technologies and how to make advantage of these. Addressing accessibility’s
technical issues (Activity 3.2.3).
 Database archiving – Archiving data stored in legacy databases that can be of importance at
a later stage of operations or research is the focus of this activity. Legacy databases can
often pose a cyber-security risk or become inaccessible with the technological advances in
software and hardware systems. Database archiving can ensure that the data remains
accessible in the future should the need arise (Activity 3.2.4).
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4.4 Working Area 4: Awareness Preservation

4.4.1 Background
The NEA launched in 2011 the “Preservation of Records, Knowledge and Memory (RK&M) across
Generations” initiative, which lasted until April 2018. The unicity of the RK&M initiative in the
international panorama was the participation not only of the RWMOs, but also of representatives from
other parts of society such as national archives, authorities, concerned municipalities, NGOs and
universities. This international initiative developed an in-depth understanding about how to preserve
RK&M about radioactive waste repositories in future societies, as well as a specific methodology to
address this issue. The group prepared a RK&M preservation toolbox, spanning a menu of 35
different preservation mechanisms and guidelines on how to combine and implement them. New
concepts have been developed with the Key Information File (KIF) and the Set of Essential Records
(SER). The final report of the RK&M initiative, by integrating all insights and results, can be read as a
general guide to the RK&M preservation topic.
The RK&M initiative therefore is considered as a major progress in preserving the awareness of a
radioactive waste repository and its associated data, information and knowledge over very long
timescales. However, additional work still needs to be carried out. Indeed, for example, the final report
of the RK&M initiative recommends the continuation of an international RK&M preservation network,
as an interactive platform to continue to develop ideas, establish collaborations, and share findings
related to putting previous learning into practice (for example, exchanging experiences with visitor
centres, participatory monitoring initiatives, and partnerships with archives).
4.4.2 Scope
The Working Area 4 (WA4), i.e. Awareness Preservation, of the IDKM Roadmap identifies activities to
address issues and explore avenues that RK&M has not totally covered due to lack of time. The
scope of such activities is (i) to fill the remaining gaps, and (ii) to build and share experience on
practical implementation of RK&M provisions, (iii) while keeping and expanding the diversity of
participants and participating organisations, considering the multi-actors dimension of knowledge and
memory preservation over long timescales.
4.4.3 Activities
The activities in WA4 are structured in three macro-activities, i.e. “Participatory Mechanisms”, which
acknowledges the fundamental participatory dimension of RK&M preservation, “Records” and
“Complementary analysis”. The complete and detailed description of these proposed activities are
provided in Section WA4 of the Appendix. They can be briefly summarised as follows:
 As not all participants can be involved at the same level, a dedicated platform for information
and discussion is proposed, which will act as a steering committee of the various activities
(Activity 4.1.1).
 A dedicated activity is devoted to fostering participatory processes in the implementation of
RK&M preservation (Activity 4.1.2).
 The other activities aim at progressing in the practical implementation of RK&M mechanisms,
such as the KIF (Activity 4.2.1), or exploring new avenues (Activity 4.3.1). Work on the SER
will also continue, within the Working Area on Archiving (Activity 3.1.4)
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5 Work Breakdown Structure

The proposed work breakdown structure (WBS) for IDKM is shown in Figure 9. Arrows to the side indicate touchpoints with ongoing NEA projects (green) and
past projects (yellow).
Figure 9 Proposed Work Breakdown Structure for IDKM Project
Page 27 of 43
6 References
Cumo, M. L. (2012). Impianti Nucleari (2a edizione). Rome: Sapienza Università Editrice.
Drucker, P. (1993). Postcapitalist Society. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Gulliford, J. (2016). International perspective on the importance and role of KM in the nuclear sector:
problems and opportunities. Third International Conference on Nuclear Knowledge
Management - Challenges and Approaches. Vienna.
NEA Radioactive Waste Management Committee (RWMC). (2014). Foundations and guiding
principles for the preservation of records, knowledge and memory across generations: A
focus on the post-closure phase of geological repositories. Retrieved from https://www.oecd-
nea.org/rwm/rkm/documents/flyer-A4-rkm-collective-statement-en-2014.pdf
Page 28 of 43
Appendix A – Detailed Activities
WA1 Safety Case

WA1.1 - Core activities
Activity 1.1.1 Improvements to NEA’s Existing Data and Metadata Libraries
This activity will continue to mature the content of the RepMet libraries, including
Description
a review of the data models, associated properties and definitions.
Intended to produce a comprehensive data model, able to describe in a
Justification
structured and consistent format, any repository system.
Updated Waste Packaging, Repository Design and Site Characterisation libraries
Deliverables
(together with any updates needed to common libraries and tools).
Effort Significant
Experienced consultants with knowledge of waste packaging, repository design,
site characterisation and facility operation.
Resources
Potential for joint work with IGSC, EGOS and the FEP TG to underpin the need
for data items and consequences of missing data.
RepMet Site Characterisation Library, RepMet Waste Package Library, RepMet
Dependencies
Repository Library, NEA International FEP List 3.0.
Activity 1.1.2 Safety Case Modelling
This activity will apply the techniques of data modelling to describe the
Description
components of a safety case and its production process.
Intended to produce a comprehensive data model, able to describe in a
structured and consistent format the process leading to the production of the
Justification components of a safety case. This will help organisations to ensure they
understand the process being followed and capture evidence of this in a
structured and auditable way to support long term confidence.
RepMet style library defining the metadata needed to describe the components of
Deliverables a safety case and its production process (including data models, property lists,
vocabularies and similar).
Effort Significant
Experienced consultants with experience of transport, operational and post-
Resources closure safety cases working closely with data modellers.
Potential for joint work with IGSC and EGOS.
Dependencies Activity 1.2.1, partially dependent on Activity 1.1.1.
Activity 1.1.3 Digital Safety Case
This activity will begin to consider what a digital safety case would look
like and what features, benefits and challenges it would introduce. It will
Description explore how safety case documents can be ‘born digital’, with content written
semantically so that it becomes machine readable and available for intelligent
search.
Justification The use of intelligent digital formats and systems has the potential to benefit
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improve the usability and quality of a safety case, for example through improved
content search for users or auditing through digital change and configuration
management.
Deliverables Guidance and examples on what a digital safety case could look like.
Effort Significant
Experienced consultants with experience of transport, operational and post-
Resources
closure safety cases working closely with data modellers.
Dependencies Partially dependent on Activity 1.1.2.
WA1.2 Supporting activities
Activity 1.2.1 Process Modelling
This activity will look at how processes can be modelled, including a review of
Description
existing standards available for this purpose.
Justification Enabler for Activity 1.1.2.
Deliverables Report describing available standards with examples of application to RWM.
Effort 50 days.
Resources Experienced data modeller with experience of business modelling practices.
Dependencies None.
Activity 1.2.2 Formats
This activity will look at techniques for the preservation of information and the
Description
formats able to support this.
Many organisations are making use of systems (for example databases) or
Justification software (for example 3D CAD) whose data formats are closed source and may
become inaccessible in future.
Guidance on aspects to consider (and potential principles to adopt) in relation to
Deliverables
data formats.
Effort 75 days.
Resources Experienced consultant with knowledge of digital preservation strategies.
Dependencies None.
Activity 1.2.3 Metadata Storage within Files
This activity will look at approaches to embed metadata in existing file formats, to
Description allow metadata to be captured at record creation time to support context setting
and search.
Metadata stored separately from the content it is associated with has the
potential to become separated or lost in future. Many file formats now contains
Justification
the ability to embed arbitrary metadata to help mitigate this problem and thereby
improve confidence in the information contained within.
Guidance on file formats supporting the embedding of metadata and examples of
Deliverables
its potential beneficial use in RWM.
Effort 75 days.
Resources IT consultant with experience of file encodings.
Dependencies None.
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Activity 1.2.4 Creation of a NEA Data and Metadata Library Server
This activity will produce an NEA data and metadata library server to store and
Description present the data libraries produced by the WP-IDKM online in an intuitive and
accessible format.
Data models, property lists and vocabularies are not ideally suited to
documenting on paper. An online library server would act as a focal point for the
Justification libraries produced by the WP and would offer a more intuitive user experience
with embedded search. It could also export data in standards compliant formats
(e.g. SKOS).
Deliverables NEA data and metadata library server
Effort Significant.
Resources IT consultants.
Dependencies None to develop, WP-IDKM libraries to populate.
Activity 1.2.5 NEA Community of Practice on IDKM
This activity will set up a Community of Practice for participating organisations to

Description meet and share experiences in the field of IDKM for RWM, including planned
work and lessons learned.
Communities of Practice are an efficient and effective way of learning from the
Justification experience of others, gathering feedback on proposed approaches and
collectively defining good practice.
To be determined, but could include a report describing guidance and good
Deliverables
practices identified.
Effort e.g. 2 meetings per year per participating organisation
Resources RWMO participants.
Dependencies None.
Activity 1.2.6 Legacy Records
This activity will look at approaching to managing and digitising legacy paper
Description records or digital records on legacy database or control systems which are
becoming difficult to maintain.
Many organisations have legacy records that are only available in a paper format,
or within legacy databases or control systems, which describe packaged or
unpackaged wastes in storage facilities. This information will be required to
Justification
support future disposal. Such records require management to ensure they remain
useable and may benefit from digitalisation to operate a disposal facility efficiently
in future.
Guidance on dealing with legacy paper records and potential techniques (for
example Optical Character Recognition or Artificial Intelligence) to digitise these.
Deliverables
Guidance on migrating digital records from legacy systems to accessible file
formats. Guidance on approaches to prioritise the treatment of legacy records.
Dependent on level of detail required. If data models produced to describe legacy
Effort
records may be significant.
Experienced consultants with knowledge of waste records working with
Resources
preservation experts and, potentially, data modellers.
Dependencies None.
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WA2 Knowledge Management (KM)

WA2.1 KM Strategies
Activity 2.1.1 Organisational culture and processes
The goal of this activity is 1) to identify integrating knowledge management

practices (mapping, analysis, sharing, codification, dissemination and transfer)
into organisational culture and processes, 2) to provide operational guidelines for
implementation as well as justification and recommendations to decision-makers.
Particular aspects of this activity include:
- Strategic organisational aspects for implementing, developing and
maintaining a KM function;
- Regulatory and normative aspects of KM;
- Role of governance and middle management;
- Role of human resources management;
- Requirements, constraints and trajectories for KM programmes and projects
- Individual, collaborative and cooperative aspects of KM (cognitive
dimension, interpersonal dimension, social dimension, сultural dimension,
cross-cutting dimension);
- Links with innovation (technical, organisational and managerial), potentials
for and support of organisational and managerial innovation and
transformation;
- Role of quality, information, document, records and communication
management functions;
- Aspects of subcontracted activities and supply chain;
- Potentials for KM partnership within the national ecosystems (with REs,
TSOs, SAs, WPs, civil society, local communities, public opinion).
The activity will be carried out by volunteer KM affiliated staff (people in charge of
KM or closely related functions) from Member states. It will be structure in three
steps with eventual extensions. According to the step, the involved people will
have to:
Description
Step 1:
- Collect and study reference KM documentation (norms, standards,
handbooks, academic material, grey literature, etc.);
- Collect and study descriptions of KM functions and experiences in
organisations from other sectors;
- Identify KM practitioners and communities within Member States;
- Identify KM regular and upcoming KM events within Member States (club
meetings, seminars, workshops, conferences).
Step 2:
- Define key drivers for successful, robust and lasting KM in RWMOs;
- Identify best practices for leveraging these drivers, as well as failures and
risks, both in energy, including RWM, and other sectors;
- Define generic RWM operational guidelines for implementation as well as
justification and recommendations to decision-makers.
Step 3:
- Define the architecture and structures of a set of complementary documents
for efficiently conveying the information and messages;
- Draft the defined documents.
Possible inclusions/extensions:
- Collectively adapt the generic operational guidelines for implementation and the
justification and recommendations to decision-makers, to the specific organisational
and cultural contexts of Member States’ RWMOs;
- Define and animate dedicated communication channels for efficiently conveying the
information and messages to key RWM actors in Member States. E.g., organise and
animate final restitution workshop/s with key strategic actors.
Due to the exceptionally long timescale of radioactive waste management
Justification projects, the shift of generations and the consequent risk of knowledge loss is a
widely spread issue for RWM organisations over the world. The relatively small
Page 32 of 43
size of the RWMOs and the maturity of “knowledge management” science makes
it necessary to adapt and implement knowledge management methodologies as
well as practices, which have been developed in other fields. Only practical
implementation based on existing methodologies and experience feedback from
cases in other organisations can provide a concrete progress in this area, not
reinventing the wheel while adapting existing knowledge to RWM specificities.
Deliverables Catalogues, reviews, guidelines.
Effort Not defined.
Resources Not defined.
IAEA past documents (“Preventing knowledge loss”, etc.) regular and currently
Dependencies planned activities (“Nuclear KM school”, “Design knowledge base preservation
TM”), ISO 30401 “Knowledge management systems” and similar.
Activity 2.1.2 Knowledge sharing
Sharing knowledge horizontally between knowledge-holders from both older and

younger generations, across Member States. Select, gather, learn, adjust and
apply appropriate methodologies for knowledge preservation and transfer. Bring
methodologies home to implement and deploy individually within respective
organisations from Member States.
The activity will be carried out by volunteer KM affiliated staff (people in charge of
KM or closely related functions) from Member States. It will be structure in three
steps with eventual extensions. According to the step, the involved people will
have to:
Step 1: Prepare methodology
- Select and gather appropriate available methods, tools and techniques for
knowledge preservation and transfer: knowledge identification, harvesting
(structured interviews), codification and handover (describing key processes,
projects, information resources, etc.);
- Identify organisms providing KM advice and training in Member states (academic,
consulting);
- Get trained to the selected methodologies (professional practitioners should provide
this training – consulting or academic);
- Collectively adjust, further develop and prepare the methods, tools and techniques
for their application with the knowledge holders.
Description Step 2: Identify key subjects and knowledge holders
- Identify key subjects most critical to repository projects progress and identify
corresponding key knowledge holders within Member states, both from older (bound
to retire within the next 5 years) and younger generations.
Step 3: Apply methodology
For each identified key subject, apply methods, tools and techniques to:
- Support knowledge holders from older generations sharing knowledge among
themselves and collectively consolidate it;
- Support knowledge holders from older generations transferring it to holders from
younger generations;
- Support holders from younger generations analysing it against their own specific
(national) knowledge status and needs;
- Support them in consolidating and codifying it;
- Support them in preparing for the maintenance of the products and the continuation
of the activities, in link with Activity 2.1.1.
Possible inclusions/extensions
- Include in the methodology and/or training: integrating experience feedback,
capturing and capitalizing lessons learned, animating communities of knowledge and
practice, implementing technical mentoring / job shadowing.
Include lifecycle analysis and management with the codification: routing (flagging)
of records and memory.
Page 33 of 43
Due to the exceptionally long timescale of radioactive waste management

projects, the shift of generations and the consequent risk of knowledge loss is a
widely spread issue for RWM organisations over the world. The relatively small
size of the RWMOs and the maturity of “knowledge management” science makes
Justification it necessary to adapt and implement knowledge management methodologies as
well as practices, which have been developed in other fields. Only practical
implementation based on existing methodologies and experience feedback from
cases in other organisations can provide a concrete progress in this area, not
reinventing the wheel while adapting existing knowledge to RWM specificities.
Step 1: Report on methodology.
Deliverables Step 2: Selection of key subjects and knowledge holders.
Step 3: Codified key knowledge; Report on implementation and lessons learnt.
Effort Not defined.
EURAD (EJP), IAEA past documents (“Preventing knowledge loss”, etc.) and
Dependencies currently planned activities (“Design knowledge base preservation TM”), etc.
RKM mechanisms, KIF and SER.
WA2.2 KM Tools
Activity 2.2.1 KM ontologies
The goal of this activity is to develop ontologies for radioactive waste

management to be included in knowledge management systems in RWMOs.
Ontological engineering is about developing principal models for knowledge
dynamics representation for a given activity (RWM, in our case), to be used
within and across digital tools. Ontological engineering refers to the set of
activities that concern the ontology development process, the ontology lifecycle,
the methods and techniques for building ontologies, and the tool suites and
languages that support them.
There are formal ontologies and applied ontologies – general mechanism of
ontology development process applies to the actual knowledge management
Description
systems in RWMOs.
Formal ontology is the framework for selecting scenarios of applied ontology
building :
 Methodological guidelines for ontology specification.
 Searching knowledge resources.
 Ontology development project planning.
 Non ontological resources reuse and ontological models reengineering.
 Ontological models reuse.
Final applied ontological models design and implementation.
Ontological engineering is the branch of computer science operating dedicated
methodologies to represent formally, mainly with mark-up languages, sets of
Justification concepts and their relationships in a specific knowledge domain, to be expressed
and used in digital models. Formal ontologies and applied ontologies can support
the knowledge management strategies inside RWMOs.
Formal RWM ontology and set of applied ontologies to be available on NEA
Deliverables
servers.
Effort Not defined.
Resources Experts in ontological engineering with or without a background in RWM (first

option would be the preferred, whereas in the second case strong support from
Page 34 of 43
WP-IDKM members is required).

Already existing ontologies (for example IAEA), RepMet Tools and Guidelines.
Dependencies Experience in ontology development and implementation in, for example,
medicine and the life sciences. Links with BIM and digital twins.
Activity 2.2.2 Cognitive computing technologies
Analysis of state-of-the-art cognitive computing technology (for example, artificial

intelligence, machine learning) allowing to extract knowledge out of data.
Description
Investigating applications and benefits to the knowledge management system in
RWMOs, including links with BIM and digital twins.
Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence process and machine
learning is the ability to learn and improve without explicit instructions. These
Justification
tools of computer science could support the knowledge management systems of
RWMOs.
State-of-the-art reports.
Step 1: Report on methodology.
Deliverables Step 2: Digitalisation RWMO.
Step 3: AI application in RWMO.
Effort Not defined.
Experts in cognitive computer technologies, potentially including artificial
intelligence, and applications with or without a background in RWM (first option
Resources
would be the preferred, whereas in the second case strong support from WP-
IDKM members is required).
Dependencies Benchmarking best practices in high-tech branches.
Page 35 of 43
Activity 2.2.3 NEA Community of Practice on KM in RWM
To form the Community of Practice in RWM KM technologies, which

brings together not only the RWMOs staff, but also a wide range of
Description
stakeholders and share knowledge across generations of workers and
stakeholders throughout the life cycle of the waste repositories.
Information, data and knowledge management (IDKM) technologies are only of
use if applied effectively and consistently. This will fall to RWMO’s within their
organisations and guidance is provided on doing so.
This activity would initiate a group to provide advice to other NEA committees
and working parties on IDKM and to ensure products produced elsewhere in
Justification NEA make use of appropriate tools, standards and metadata. This in turn
maximises the value and interoperability of NEA’s work. Key projects will be
identified by NEA as part of this task but would be expected to include the
IGSC Thermodynamic Database (TDB) and Nuclear Databank, whose
properties and vocabularies would be expected to link to the data models
produced in Section 4.1.3.1, archive ready formats for NEA products and
similar.
Step 1: Report on approaches In Community of Practice forming
Deliverables Step 2: Report of needed Information and Communication platforms for CoP
Step 3: Report on implementation and lessons learnt.
Effort Not defined.
IAEA knowledge management WiKi, the experience of CoP in medicine and
Dependencies
other industries, links with BIM and digital twins.
WA3 - Archiving
WA3.1 - Record archiving
Activity 3.1.1 - Digitisation of legacy records
This activity aims to provide guidance to RWMOs on considerations, best

practices when endeavouring to digitise paper-based (legacy) records. Including
assessment of the tools (technological and other), that can move the digitisation
Description
effort forward. The activity’s goal is to share experiences among RWMOs in
planning for, carrying out digitising of legacy records, and updating of resulting
electronic records.
Many RWMOs have vast amounts of legacy records in paper format that are
difficult to access, search, gain information from. Digitisation of these records is
Justification often a selected solution requiring considerable effort. Documenting the lessons
learnt and the tools used can help in reducing the effort in future RWMO
digitisation projects.
Deliverables Report on digitisation of legacy records.
100 man-days to document, analyse digitisation project experiences and prepare
Effort
recommendations.
Resources RWMOs with (legacy) record digitising experiences.
Dependencies Record selection SER; Time dimension; Relevant standards.
Page 36 of 43
Activity 3.1.2 - Archiving procedures and accessibility
RWMOs need to interact with archives in a number of areas, some of which are
well-defined, such as submitting records to the archive, but RWMOs have
Description special needs in this regard such as updating descriptive record sets (for
example, the Set of Essential Records), this activity plans on identifying
procedures for these needs.
The question of accessibility is important as records may not be available for
public use due to copyright issues. Future users of the archive should also be
considered and use-cases defined. Accessibility includes the capability of
finding relevant records in an archive, options to assist in finding these shall be
considered.
Justification
Updating records in an archive (removing obsolete records and adding new
ones) is not a standard procedure of archives. If users are unable to find
relevant records these might as well be non-existent, therefore a reasonable
effort should be made to assist in finding. Copyright issues can make a record
inaccessible to the public
Deliverables Report on archiving procedures and accessibility.
Effort 150 man-days.
Resources Members who are proficient in archiving and technical details.
Dependencies None
Activity 3.1.3 - Alternative archiving methods
Archives have their limitations in rational usage or may refuse records not
required by legislature, in these cases alternative archives can be considered.
How can RWMOs make use of commercial archives (such as MOM), what other
Description forms of archiving can complement national archives, and the interaction among
these archives. Cost-efficient forms of archives such as using time capsules.
The possibility of involving local stakeholders, planning the responsibility to take
over the alternative archives.
Funding can be problematic or national archives may refuse records deemed for
Justification
long-term preservation.
Deliverables Report on alternative archiving methods.
Effort 75 man-days.
Resources Members who are proficient in archiving.
Dependencies Record selection SER; Archiving technical issues; Relevant standards.
Activity 3.1.4 - Record selection: Set of Essential Records (SER)
An earlier NEA initiative, RK&M, began this work, however found that further
work is required in the development of the SER. The activity stream will work to
further develop the strategic mechanism of the Set of Essential Records (SER),
and apply it to concrete examples, particularly:
 Further evaluate how the procedure can be connected to the RepMet
Description Libraries and take credit of them;
 Concretise the review process of the SER, investigate, whether the
proposed classification and rating scheme is appropriate and check if
additional instruments are needed;
 Systemize and underpin the arguments for classification and rating of
the records;
Page 37 of 43
 Apply the mechanism exemplarily to one or two concrete RWMO sites

and include aspects from Safety cases of other countries;
 Identify and if possible, rectify any shortcomings and optimise the
proposed procedure and tools.
 Study the general possibility as well as potential synergies, benefits and
drawbacks of a coupling with operational-phase records management
strategies.
To present an applicable and comprehensive procedure and relevant supporting
tools for the selection and periodical review of a SER that is suitable for
adaptation by national programmes. With this procedure OECD NEA Member
States are provided with a substantial basis to select essential records relevant
to their repository programmes to be preserved for use by future generations,
assisting them in making informed decisions pertaining to the repository.
Justification The deliverables are meant to enable the RWMOs, regulators and other
stakeholders to:
 Develop their own strategy for the preservation of a set of essential
records from their potential disposal site(s) based on “real” examples;
 Decide on a comprehensive view based on different national aspects
and criteria for selection of essential records compiled and discussed in
IDKM.
 Updated “SER” report with concretised procedures and tested tools;
 Updated tables illustrating the selection and review procedure of
records for an SER of concrete repository example;
Deliverables
 Exemplary national SER(s) (if possible);
 Further developed connections and relationships of SER to KIF and
archives.
Resources Participant organisations’ in-kind or financial contributions.
External inputs / references
 NEA RepMet Libraries;
Dependencies  RK&M SER report;
 Participants and/or external consultants’ expertise;
 Database archiving activity.
WA3.2 - Archiving Electronic Records
Activity 3.2.1 - Relevant standards
The goal of this activity is to assess and identify standards to be applied in

Description archiving practices and procedures by RWMOs, possible integration or
adaptation if needed.
Finding suitable standards to follow requires effort. It is advantageous for
Justification
RWMOs to apply the same or similar standards.
Deliverables Report on archiving standards.
Resources Members knowledgeable in relevant standards (and/or willing to learn).
Dependencies All activities under Archiving WA3!
Activity 3.2.2 - Time dimension
Page 38 of 43
Archiving and preservation practices depend on the period of time involved. The
activity shall consider differences between short-term (operational phase)
preservation and long-term archiving strategies. The reprioritisation of
Description
information, review process in the light of data lifetime, the relevancy of the
information, lifecycle of the information and its relevance in different repository
phases.
Archiving of records with the hope that these will not be required may require a
Justification different strategy than preserving data that will be certainly needed after some
time. Archiving and conversion effort may not be justified.
Deliverables Report on time dimension.
Effort 75 man-days.
Resources Members knowledgeable in time dimension and relevant requirements.
Dependencies Archiving technical issues; Record selection SER.
Activity 3.2.3 - Archiving technical Issues
The activity will consider the technical issues of archiving and preservation
strategies required to convert, transfer, store and archive data. Assessed areas
planned to include:
• Recording media;
• Digital file formats;
• Relevant hardware;
• Cyber security considerations;
• Media types available to preserve digital data and the periods over which
Description such data is likely to be reliable;
• Data conversion roles, methods and tools, justification of conversion
resources;
• Role of quality assurance in transferring records to new media, to prevent
losing information and quality decline;
• Role of metadata;
• Recommendation of consistent tools, and methods showing RWMOs what
they could be missing;
• Evolving technologies and how to deal with them, accessibility’s technical
issues.
Evolving platforms and data storage methods are constantly changing, new
Justification technologies contribute new opportunities. Advantages due to RWMOs using
similar archiving technologies.
Deliverables Report on archiving technical issues.
Resources Members proficient in relevant technical issues.
Digitisation of legacy records; Relevant standards; Time dimension; Database
Dependencies
archiving.
Activity 3.2.4 - Database archiving
RWMOs may have databases that are no longer in production but the data stored
by these databases is considered valuable at a later stage of operations or
Description research. Keeping these databases operational has a number of drawbacks as
operating these databases require resources, they can become obsolete, pose a
cyber security risk or even become inaccessible with the technological advances
in operation and hardware systems. Furthermore, the data and table relationships
Page 39 of 43
within these databases are usually stored in a binary (sometimes insufficiently

documented) format and can be a challenge to archive. By archiving these
databases, the RWMO is able to save IT resources and more importantly can
ensure that the data will continue to be accessible for future use.
This activity aims to determine means for archiving databases and provide
Justification lessons learnt on hands-on experiences. Database archiving can ensure that the
data stored remains accessible in the future should the need arise.
Database archiving is a highly technical and unique project like activity that
Deliverables warrants its own activity. Both Andra and PURAM are planning database
archiving activities.
Effort Report on database archiving experiences, related tools, formats, testing.
200 man-days (database archiving activities are to be performed by the RWMO,
Resources
effort relates to documentation of experiences and recommendations).
Dependencies Technical expertise; Actual hands-on experience with archiving databases.
Page 40 of 43
WA4 - Awareness Preservation

WA4.1 - Participatory mechanisms
Activity 4.1.1 - Keeping track of, and facilitating participation in, RK&M preservation
developments
Develop a discussion / information platform integrating all aspects of an RK&M

strategy and open to many stakeholders. Thereby, facilitate and strengthen
Description
cooperation and the exchange of knowledge and experience on RK&M
preservation solutions.
Several RK&M preservation mechanisms are not (or not fully) within the scope of
action of the implementer, nor in the usual portfolio of the regulator. However,
developments in the field of RK&M preservation mechanisms should be followed,
shared and the potential for initiatives assessed in order to eventually make those
Justification mechanisms amenable to be included in national strategies.
For those mechanisms that are under control of the implementer or regulator,
best practices should be developed and experience shared in order to improve
their effectiveness and efficiency.
Deliverables Ad-hoc reports/studies, status reports, possibly workshop proceedings.
Effort ~100 person hours per participating organisation per year.
Resources Participating organisations’ in-kind contributions.
RK&M preservation mechanisms: Mechanism description sheets (Final report,
Dependencies Annex 2.2). To be combined with related network (sub-)activities into a
networking group.
Activity 4.1.2 - Fostering participatory processes for RK&M preservation mechanisms
Develop a discussion platform or network that is able to reach out to, and
integrate, relevant stakeholders to the extent possible. While a permanent
integration of “all stakeholders” into the network will not be feasible, the network
Description
should develop the necessary liaisons to a number of stakeholders, so that
workshops (for example, following the model of the National workshops of the
FSC) to initiate participatory processes become feasible.
Technical solutions for knowledge transfer and memory and awareness keeping
that are not carried by society stand on thin ice. Also, process oriented RK&M
Justification
preservation mechanisms, such as the Key Information File or Monitoring, are
dependent on a functioning participatory process in order to be effective.
Provide a working place and network to exchange experience with, and actively
Method of
foster, participatory (i.e. stakeholder involvement) processes for RK&M
delivery
preservation mechanisms.
Deliverables Workshops and workshop proceedings.
~100 person hours (not including workshops) per participating organisation per
Effort
year over a minimum period of 4–5 years.
RK&M preservation mechanisms: Mechanism description sheets (Final report,
Dependencies Annex 2.2). Synergies through combination with related network (sub-)activities
into a networking group.
Page 41 of 43
WA4.2 - Records
Activity 4.2.1 - Key Information File (KIF): further applications
Description Create a platform for exchange of experiences in the actual writing of a KIF.
A proposal for a skeleton for a Key information file is available in the deliverables
from RK&M. The recommendation is to start early and to involve different parts of
the society in the development of the content and the wording of text. So far has
the proposal mainly been developed from the technical view and it is important
that people with non-technical competences (communicators, artists,
Justification stakeholders from municipalities) and others get a forum to exchange
experiences. Besides the local/national scale, implementing a KIF according to
the recommendations of RK&M requires to work on the international scale of the
KIF: chapter 7 on similar repositories worldwide, for cross-referencing, translation
into an international language (English) using common wording as far as
possible, namely.
Provide a working place to reflect on, and compare different ways to create a KIF
Method of
to be understood through generations. Share experience on the effective
delivery
implementation of KIFs.
Developed examples of Key information files for actual repositories. Proposals for
practical strategies to keep the knowledge of the existence of KIFs alive within
Deliverables
different stakeholders nationally and internationally. Harmonised glossaries when
possible. Set of agreed short descriptions of similar repositories (for chapter 7).
Effort ~100 person hours per participating organisation per year.
Dependencies To be combined with related network (sub-)activities into a networking group.
WA4.3 - Complementary analysis
Activity 4.3.1 - Specific studies and surveys
Have studies and surveys performed on specific subjects relating to awareness

preservation in order to provide high-level input to the discussions. These studies
may be performed by (i) experts from or outside the participating organisations,
or (ii) students graduating in the relevant fields. The subjects may be as diverse
as:
 Ethical implications of IDKM over generations;
 Possible role and features of internet for IDKM over generations;
 Time capsules;
 International records repositories;
 Geographic information systems;
Description  Controlled Languages;
 Analogy between individual and societal memory;
 Peculiarities of IDKM over generations in case of a retrievability period
after closure;
 …
The subjects to be addressed will be defined by the discussion / information
platform integrating all aspects of an RK&M strategy and open to many
stakeholders (See Activity AP.1). Topics should be selected for studies and
surveys when a clear knowledge gap emerges from the exchange of experience
within the group. The results will be presented and discussed through this
platform.
Justification It is highly probable that neither the representatives of the participating
Page 42 of 43
organisations nor the stakeholders involved in the participatory processes will

cover the very large scope of expertise to be addressed, and even if they are
able to cover it, will they have time for it?
Moreover, involving students contributes to some extent to IDKM transmission (to
the next generation).
 Studies reports;
Deliverables
 Presentations to the discussion/information platform.
100 man-days (estimated effort for initiating, supervising and integrating the
Effort studies and surveys) + not including the costs for the surveys and studies, highly
depending on the set of topics.
Resources Participant organisations’ in-kind or financial contributions.
External inputs / references:
Dependencies  RK&M reports, including unpublished;
 Participants and/or external consultants’ expertise.
Page 43 of 43

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IDKM Working Party Roadmap

Information, Data and Knowledge

Prepared by: IDKM Workshop Programme Committee and NEA Secretariat

Date: 18 October 2019

Note: Final draft for distribution

2 RWMC in the IDKM ............................................................................................ 9

3 Scope of this document .................................................................................... 9

4 Roadmap structure .......................................................................................... 10

5 Work Breakdown Structure ............................................................................ 27

Appendix A – Detailed Activities .......................................................................... 29

WA3.1 - Record archiving ...................................................................................... 36

NEA Nuclear Energy Agency

1.1 IDKM in the nuclear sector

1.2 IDKM in Radioactive Waste Management (RWM)

Figure 1 The lifecycle of a geological repository

2 RWMC involvement in IDKM

3 Scope of this document

Figure 2: Working Areas covered in the IDKM Roadmap

Table 1: Working Area Topics

Working Area Broad Topic

6 Though on a reduced volume of information, see Figure 8 in Section 4.3.3.

4.1 Working Area 1: Safety Case

(Expansion of Shaded Section of Figure 3)

Figure 7 RepMet Web-products

 A review of possible options for digitisation, including automated scanning, automated

4.2 Working Area 2: Knowledge Management (KM)

4.3 Working Area 3: Archiving

archiving procedure. The question of accessibility is important, as records may not be

Figure 8 Hierarchy of DGR records

4.4 Working Area 4: Awareness Preservation

5 Work Breakdown Structure

Figure 9 Proposed Work Breakdown Structure for IDKM Project

Drucker, P. (1993). Postcapitalist Society. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Appendix A – Detailed Activities

WA1 Safety Case

Activity 1.1.1 Improvements to NEA’s Existing Data and Metadata Libraries

Activity 1.1.2 Safety Case Modelling

Activity 1.1.3 Digital Safety Case

WA1.2 Supporting activities

Activity 1.2.1 Process Modelling

Activity 1.2.2 Formats

Activity 1.2.3 Metadata Storage within Files

Activity 1.2.4 Creation of a NEA Data and Metadata Library Server

Activity 1.2.5 NEA Community of Practice on IDKM

This activity will set up a Community of Practice for participating organisations to

Activity 1.2.6 Legacy Records

WA2 Knowledge Management (KM)

Activity 2.1.1 Organisational culture and processes

The goal of this activity is 1) to identify integrating knowledge management

Activity 2.1.2 Knowledge sharing

Sharing knowledge horizontally between knowledge-holders from both older and

Due to the exceptionally long timescale of radioactive waste management

Activity 2.2.1 KM ontologies

The goal of this activity is to develop ontologies for radioactive waste

Resources Experts in ontological engineering with or without a background in RWM (first

WP-IDKM members is required).

Activity 2.2.2 Cognitive computing technologies

Analysis of state-of-the-art cognitive computing technology (for example, artificial

Activity 2.2.3 NEA Community of Practice on KM in RWM

To form the Community of Practice in RWM KM technologies, which

Activity 3.1.1 - Digitisation of legacy records

This activity aims to provide guidance to RWMOs on considerations, best

Activity 3.1.2 - Archiving procedures and accessibility

Activity 3.1.3 - Alternative archiving methods