PROV-09 · Chain of custody for student media

Design the workflow that preserves provenance from shoot to publish in a program where equipment is shared, students graduate, and files live in four places. Then prove it by running a real story through it.

Your program's actual conditions: the storage it uses, the devices it shares, the accounts that expire in June, the editors who hand off. One real story to run through the workflow as the test. The failure log from PROV-04, if it exists, since it names exactly where your current process leaks.

Designing for an ideal newsroom rather than the one that exists. Ignoring the graduation problem — who owns files when the student who shot them leaves. Requiring a step no one will perform on deadline. Treating storage as custody: knowing where a file is says nothing about who touched it. Never testing the workflow on a real story, which is the only way to find out it is too slow.

A workflow that ran: the process from capture to publish with who does what and roughly how long each step takes; the naming, storage, and retention rules including what happens at graduation; the custody record produced by the real test story; the points where the workflow still loses provenance, stated rather than hidden; and a one-page version for a student's first week.

CT: distinguishing storage from custody. CR: designing for the program that exists. CO: a student who did not design it runs one story through and reports where they got stuck. CM: the one-page onboarding version. CZ: the subject whose footage nobody can account for two years later.

A digital asset manager, photo editor, or production manager reviews the workflow against real constraints. Standing instruction: reject a workflow that has not been run on an actual story. School-supervised.

R1: one program, one workflow, one test story. R2: the custody record is complete and readable by someone else. R3: comparator is current practice, with its leaks named. R4: remaining gaps stated. R5: the one-pager works for a newcomer. R6: names what the program will not keep, and for how long.

(a) A workflow diagram no story ever passed through. (b) A folder structure presented as chain of custody.

Lane A immediately (journalism, broadcast, or media-technology capstone). Best paired with PROV-04. No verified credit claim.