A provenance maturity model

Abstract

The history of a piece of information is known as “provenance”. From extensive interactions with hydro-and geo-scientists in Australian science agencies we found both widespread demand for provenance and widespread confusion about how to manage it and how to develop requirements for managing it. We take inspiration from the well-known software development Capability Maturity Model to design a Maturity Model for provenance management that we call the PMM. The PMM can be used to assess the state of existing practices within an organisation or project, to benchmark practices and existing tools, to develop requirements for new provenance projects, and to track improvements in provenance management across an organisational unit. We present the PMM and evaluate it through application in a workshop of scientists across three data-intensive science projects. We find that scientists recognise the value of a structured approach to requirements elicitation that ensures that aspects are not overlooked.