CLEAR: a credible method to evaluate website archivability

Web archiving is crucial to ensure that cultural, scientific and social heritage on the web remains accessible and usable over time. A key aspect of the web archiving process is optimal data extraction from target websites. This procedure is difficult for such reasons as, website complexity, plethora of underlying technologies and ultimately the open-ended nature of the web. The purpose of this work is to establish the notion of Website Archivability (WA) and to introduce the Credible Live Evaluation of Archive Readiness (CLEAR) method to measure WA for any website. Website Archivability captures the core aspects of a website crucial in diagnosing whether it has the potentiality to be archived with completeness and accuracy. An appreciation of the archivability of a web site should provide archivists with a valuable tool when assessing the possibilities of archiving material and in- uence web design professionals to consider the implications of their design decisions on the likelihood could be archived. A prototype application, archiveready.com, has been established to demonstrate the viabiity of the proposed method for assessing Website Archivability