Long-term Digital Preservation Good Practice
This chapter will cover:
- Digital Preservation definition
- Long-Term Digital Preservation in relation to Data Integrity
- The three maturity models used
- NDSA Levels of Preservation definition
- DPC RAM definition
- CoreTrustSeal definition
As defined in the Digital Preservation Handbook[18] from the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC)[19]:
"Digital Preservation Refers to the series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary ... (digital preservation) refers to all of the actions required to maintain access to digital materials beyond the limits of media failure or technological and organisational change.[20]"
Long-Term Digital Preservation (LTDP) is well aligned with the requirements of long-term Data Integrity. There are substantial resources available from the digital preservation community that describe how to achieve digital preservation in practice. This includes advocacy, building business cases, implementing digital preservation policies and processes, procuring digital preservation systems, and applying specific digital preservation techniques for different types of content. The resources[21] provided by the DPC cover all these areas. Likewise, several of these areas are covered in the HSRAA Guide to Archiving of Electronic Records[22].
Of particular relevance for achieving long-term Data Integrity are digital preservation self-assessment frameworks and maturity models. These allow an organisation to assess its current digital preservation capabilities and to work out where the organisation needs to be in order to achieve its digital preservation objectives. The use of maturity models and self-assessment fits very well with the risk-based approach seen in Data Integrity guidelines because it helps ensure that the use of digital preservation is proportionate to the associated risks, costs and benefits.
This report considers the following self-assessment frameworks and maturity models:
NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation
The Levels of Digital Preservation (LoP)[23] is a resource for digital preservation practitioners when building or evaluating their digital preservation program. Originally created in 2013, Version 2.0 was released in 2019 along with additional supporting documentation and resources.
DPC Rapid Assessment Model
The DPC Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM)[24] is a digital preservation maturity modelling tool that has been designed to enable rapid benchmarking of an organization’s digital preservation capability.
CoreTrustSeal
CoreTrustSeal (CTS)[25] offers to any interested data repository a core level certification based on the Core Trustworthy Data Repositories Requirements. This universal catalogue of requirements reflects the core characteristics of trustworthy data repositories.
In each case, there are guidelines and tools available to help organisations use and apply these frameworks and models. For example, guidelines[26] are available for implementors of the NDSA preservation levels and a template[27] is available to help organisations perform self-assessment. DPC RAM also has a detailed guide[28] on how to use it and a worksheet that can be used during self-assessment[29]. Likewise, CTS comes with extensive guidelines[30] and an application management tool[31]. These guidelines and tools have been used extensively in the digital preservation community with several hundred organisations completing self-assessments for the NDSA levels of preservation and DPC RAM. Nearly 200 organisations have completed certification against CoreTrustSeal[32].
These organisations are mostly memory institutions such as national archives rather than life sciences organisations, but they do have extensive experience of digital preservation and a remit for long-term retention and use of digital content. This means that the NDSA levels of preservation, DPC RAM and CoreTrustSeal are all thoroughly tested and incorporate an extensive body of experience and good practice for digital preservation that has been proven to work in the real world. Moreover, the concepts and principles of good practice in relation to LTDP are applicable and relevant irrespective of industry or sector; it is only the specific data and document types that differ.
Click each button below to find out more about each model/framework.