Extensive professional work has gone into using and documenting forensic tools for bit-for-bit preservation of born-digital materials. Less thoroughly documented are practical strategies for how, once legacy material has been made physically and intellectually stable, to make it accessible. The EaaSI project has worked to demonstrate the value of emulation as a highly successful access strategy, but it frequently remains unclear how to incorporate emulation into existing archival services and workflows. How can we connect the forensically-analyzed and software-dependent data captured by these workflows to an emulation platform to provide users with meaningful interaction?
We therefore propose a hackathon event on the topic of explicitly encouraging and linking the BitCurator platform to user access via emulation. Participants will be invited to work intensively during the hackathon (a maximum half-day session; individually or in facilitated groups) to create, initiate, or expand on a tool, document, diagram, or other resource that bridges this gap.

Potential projects might include: scripts or one-liners to convert forensic disk image formats like E01 or AFF into emulation-compatible formats; crosswalking of technical metadata generated by BitCurator tools into the EaaSI metadata model for describing software and software-dependent data; identifying and/or automating opportunities for software-based disk image analysis.

While participants will be encouraged to scope and create a quick, concrete deliverable within the time allotted, the organizers also see such a hackathon as an opportunity to create a shared space for ongoing collaboration between the BitCurator and EaaSI communities beyond the User Forum.

This workshop occurred largely in breakout rooms, and we did not record it. Please see below for the introductory slides.