The repository shall bring the Content Information of the AIP up to the required level of understandability if it fails the understandability testing.

As previously stated, the depositor takes full responsibility for the content’s understandability and preservation. APTrust supports remediation when a depositor discovers an AIP that lacks sufficient contextual or representational information to ensure understandability.

The repository design allows depositors to submit additional or updated SIPs, whose contents are added to the existing AIP upon ingestion. This mechanism supports:

• Addition of missing metadata.
• Replacement or correction of files.
• Submission of representation information after initial deposit.

In practice, this often occurs when:

• Essential metadata is created after initial ingest.
• Large payload deposits are followed by smaller metadata-only updates.
• Depositors enhance descriptive, administrative, or technical metadata months after initial submission.

APTrust preserves updated metadata alongside previously stored files and ensures that subsequent restorations include all current AIP components. The PREMIS event history, retained in Registry, documents additions, deletions, and version changes, enabling depositors to understand the object or file’s evolution over time.

If a restoration test reveals that the content cannot be interpreted as expected, the depositor is responsible for providing any necessary modifications to improve understandability. APTrust’s architecture ensures that such supplemental information can be incorporated into the AIP and preserved with the original content.

Through this combination of:

• Defined depositor responsibility aligned with the Knowledge Base of the Designated Community,
• Structured restoration testing,
• Preservation of contextual and technical metadata, and
• Support for post-ingest metadata enhancement,

APTrust ensures that the Content Information of AIPs is understandable to its Designated Community at the time of creation and can be brought to the required level of understandability if gaps are identified.