1. UK DP Needs Assessment
Project overview
2 November 2005
Martin Waller

2. Purpose of UKNA Produce a report which will …
Raise the profile of DP in the UK
Put forward strong arguments in favour of digital preservation (to influence data creators, senior policy and decision makers, …)
Identify issues that are
i) specific to individual sectors
ii) common to all sectors.
Identify key priorities for further action
Draw attention to work that has already taken place

3. UK DP Needs Assessment HOW? Desk study Quantitative survey Interviews
Report

4. Desk study Drivers and barriers for DP
Current levels of interest / awareness / funding
DP strategies / current practice
Cost and value of digital preservation
Nature of data for preservation (incl. Infrastructure requirements)
Examples of loss or near loss of digital data
Recommendations for good DP
The key priorities for further action for organisations, for the DPC and for government

5. Desk study - sources DPC Members’ survey (March 2004)
MLA regional survey (June 2005)
Map of DPC members (DPC website)
Archives in the Digital Age (MLA – Dec 2002)
Risk of Loss of Digital Data - Case studies and analysis (DPC - Sept 2004)
The Newham Archive: A Case Study in Preservation (AHDS)
Strategies for Digital Data (ADS – 1999)
Preserving & Sharing Statistical Material (RSS – 2002)
Invest to Save - DELOS project (2003)
Feasibility & Requirements Study on Preservation of E-Prints (JISC – 2003)
Collecting and preserving the World Wide Web (JISC – Feb 2003)
e-Science Curation Report (DAC – 2003)
DCC/DPC Workshop on Digital Curation Cost Models (July 2005)
… and many more…

6. Desk study - Drivers “sticks” Legal imperative Statutory duty
“carrots”
Intellectual Property
Preserving organisation’s assets
Preserving cultural heritage
Sharing knowledge
Improving access to data
Re-use of data
Financial revenue

7. Desk study – is DP on agenda?
Rising awareness of the issue certainly in some sectors
Though, not yet firmly embedded as an issue at corporate level
“Few local authorities have effective records management programmes” (2002)
“Our surveys revealed general ignorance of the digital obsolescence problem” (2003)
“a fairly low level of understanding of, and engagement in, digital preservation within the commercial sector” (2002)

8. Cost and value of digital preservation
Difficult to predict
“It is notoriously difficult to predict costs for preserving any type of digital material. Partly this is because there is not a great deal of practical experience on which to base cost estimates, and partly because much depends upon the nature of the material to be preserved” (2003)
Main cost is staff time … is ingest phase
Hard to justify DP on a cost-benefit basis
“Examples are few and far between of archives that have already successfully made money through digitisation and subsequent commercial access to their holdings” (2005)
“The value of keeping the data is often not apparent to its creator, nor does that value usually revert to its creator” (2003)

9. Recommendations for good DP
Include in corporate / strategic planning
Apply good management practices
Early involvement of data creators
Agreement and adoption of standards
Plan for software and hardware obsolescence
Active management of data
Automation is necessary for scalability
On-going funding is necessary
Collaboration can bring reduce the burden
Mixture of skills required (IT, archiving, domain expertise)
Need to preserve the context of data
Need to preserve functionality

10. Priorities for further action
Training
Guidance
Standards
Government level strategy / policy
Raising awareness

11. Survey Informed by desk study Questions reviewed by Steering group
Pilot test
Published at
Survey open 9 Sept – 14 Oct 2005
>900 letters sent out
followup
Telephone followup

12. Survey – responses 92 responses (14 Oct) + 7 (28 Oct)
“It was an extremely useful exercise […], raising critical issues relating to our digital collections.”

13. Drivers

14. Drivers

15. Current approach to DP

16. Commitment to DP

17. Some benefits from DP improved data access
improved general records management / information management
“The development of the Information Security Policy has highlighted general records management principles and shown that these issues need to be considered together”
greater re-use of data
“Enhances the long-term value of the research time invested in generating the data”
prestige, profile raising.
“business efficiency and cost savings”
optimise the value of the information held
“Getting systems in place to support data preservation for sharing enhances the long-term value of the research time invested in generating the data. It should add value and enable further high-quality research”
greater accountability

18. Suggestions for support

19. Interviews 33 were willing to be interviewed + 16 maybes
interviews were selected to get a spread of sectors / experience

20. Next steps Desk study Survey write up UKNA steering group (16 Nov)
Draft report
UKNA
steering group
(16 Nov)
Final report