PASIG Webinar: Implementing Sustainable Digital Preservation

Neil Grindley

Programme Manager – Digital Infrastructure, Digital Preservation, Curation and Archiving

Tuesday, October 22, 2013, 11:30am-12:30pm (EDT)

Project Coordinator – A Collaboration to Clarify the Cost of Curation (The 4C Project)

Programme Committee – Aligning National Approaches to Digital Preservation (ANADP II)

ANADP II differs in intent and structure from other digital preservation conferences and meetings. Its primary purpose is not to encourage information sharing, but rather to foster and support sustained global networks of influence and action.

The Action Assembly includes four main components:• Panel Discussions• Action Sessions• Patio Perspectives Sessions• Future Opportunities for Collaboration

+ Keynote Presentations + Poster Session

http://www.educopia.org/events/ANADPII/program

The Panel Discussions ...

1. Community Alignment – What makes a community work?

2. Resource Alignment - How can we employ the resources we have available to us most economically to achieve our digital preservation objectives?

3. Capacity Alignment - How can consistency in capacity building promote digital curation excellence?

4. Alignment Exemplars and Current Opportunities for Collaboration

5. Future Opportunities for Collaboration

http://www.educopia.org/events/ANADPII/program

The Action Sessions ...

1. Creating a Community Driven Tools Registry

2. Applying the OAIS Framework to Distributed Digital Preservation

3. Case Studies and Quantitative Data from the 4C project

4. Towards a Cost Spectrum

5. Creating an International Education and Training Catalogue

6. Testing the Community Capacity Model Framework

7. Developing and Sharing Teaching Infrastructure

http://www.educopia.org/events/ANADPII/program

... judging by the changing tone of conferences over the years, the community has come a long way.

So where are we now?

And by the way ... what do you mean by

“the community”

IT Specialist Content Specialist

Digital Asset Management / Preservation Planning

Why is your organisation interested in preserving digital assets? Are they assets or liabilities?

What are the defining features of the digital assets that you want to preserve?

Who will be given responsibility for digital preservation and how can they best be supported?

When do you expect the digital assets to realise value?

How are you going to technically organise the preservation of the assets?

Digital Preservation Specialist

Management

What might organisations need in terms of preservation services?

Sustainability is not a ‘tick-box’ exercise

£Impact Expertise

VFM ??Effectiveness ??

FunderService

Activity Objective Vision Benefit Impact

Activity = You do something

Objective = You aim to achieve something

Vision = You aim to change something

Benefit = You’ve helped somebody

Impact = You’ve made a difference

ServiceProject Funder

Possibly a JISC-centric view of services and sustainability!

Empower leadership to define the mission and take action

Create a strong value proposition

Creatively manage costs

Cultivate diverse sources of revenue

Establish realistic goals and a system of accountability

http://www.sr.ithaka.org/research-publications/revenue-recession-reliance-revisiting-scaithaka-sr-case-studies-sustainability

Ithaka S+R and the Strategic Content Alliance (JISC)

Investigating ‘Sustainability’

Blue Ribbon Task ForceCommon Funding Models for DP

• Internal Budgeting

• Public Funding

• Voluntary Contributions

• Fees for Preservation

• Fees for Access

Ithaka/SCA Revenue Models

• Subscription

• Endowment

• Membership

• Author pays

• Licensing

• Institutional subsidy

• Government support

• Public/private partnerships

• Non-profit partnerships

Final report (February 2010) http://brtf.sdsc.edu/

Blue Ribbon Task Force for Sustainable Digital Preservation & Access

Three principal actions are required for sustainability:

• Articulate a compelling value proposition• Provide clear incentives to preserve in the public interest• Define roles and responsibilities among stakeholders to ensure an ongoing

and efficient flow of resources to preservation throughout the digital lifecycle

Stewardship

EthicsResponsibilityWillingness

Business ModelAmbition

RiskAppetiteSolvency

Affordabilty

ValueImportanceAwarenessKnowledgeJudgement

TrustCredibilityCapability

CapacityCollaboration

Sustainability

For both service provider and service user, the attributes of the service must be understood

www.4cproject.eu

AssessmentTasks• Assess cost models &

strategies• Examine good

practice• Analyse requirements• Integrate components• Produce guidance &

briefing materials• Setup costs exchange

EnhancementTasksExamine and refine related concepts• Value• Risk• Benefits• Sustainability• Economic Reference Model

Project CoordinationTasksProject meetingsProject reportingEC liaisonBudget oversightOutputs QA

Events, Workshops, Meetings & Reports

Curation Costs Exchange

Outputs

Reports for General Dissemination

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

EngagementTasks• Engage stakeholders• Raise awareness• Organise meetings• Promote Research & Innovation• Build community network

Networking & Coordination

Affiliate Partners & Stakeholders

Reports for European Commission

Submission of Roadmap to the EC

What is the 4C Project hoping to achieve?

... Or go back a step

What problem is it trying to solve?

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

“There is a lack of information on the costs of digital preservation and its benefits (both tangible and intangible) which makes it hard to put together a convincing business case” An Emerging Market, Planets White Paper, July 2010

“I think there is indeed interest in the digital preservation community in the question of cost prediction, but there are many unknowns so perhaps people have just decided it is a difficult problem and tackled simpler ones instead!”Bill Roberts, National Archives of the Netherlands, OPF Wiki, 4 August 2011

“The bad news is that deciding what to keep and what to throw away isn't free either. Ignoring the problem incurs the costs of keeping the data; dealing with the problem incurs the costs of deciding what to throw away. We may be in the bad situation of being unable to afford either to keep or to throw away the data we generate”David Rosenthal, DSHR’s Blog, December 2012

What people were saying about the costs issue as the 4C project was coming together ...

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

Sanity check

It is generally not a big problem for large memory institutions (particularly national scale libraries and archives) to make the case for digital preservation.

But we need a wide range of organisations to engage with digital preservation. And if it’s not their core business, they will struggle to make the case.

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

Digital Curation is best done collaboratively

It’s a big and complicated task and there is wide scope for duplicated and unnecessary effort

To work collaboratively requires a shared understanding of concepts and processes and principles

Having a clear view of the organisational mission and a strategic understanding of the future increasingly means knowing how you are going to handle your digital assets

Even to hand things on effectively and efficiently, some knowledge of curation is required ... and curation most effectively happens as early as possible in the digital object lifecycle

Understanding whether your digital objects really are assets or whether they are liabilities requires some engagement with curation concepts and preservation planning issues

Ultimately ... It’s about understanding the business case for preservation

What are the components of a business case?

http://wiki.dpconline.org/index.php?title=Template_for_building_a_business_case

The SPRUCE Projecthttp://wiki.opf-labs.org/display/SPR/Home

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

A DRAFT Economic Sustainability Reference Model (ESRM)

Brian Lavoie(OCLC)

Chris Rusbridge

http://4cproject.eu/community-resources/outputs-and-deliverables/ms9-draft-economic-sustainability-reference-model

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

Reality

Model

Reference Model

New Reality

Model

What is the point of a Reference Model?

Senior ManagersOperational Managers

Operational Staff

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

Funders & Investors

Who is the ESRM aimed at?

Senior ManagersOperational Managers

Operational Staff

Digital Assets Value & Benefits

Perspective ...

Focusing on ...

Activity and ProcessCuration as ...

Time and Effort

Black Box

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

Funders & Investors

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

Digital Assets

Activity and Process

Time and Effort

COSTS MODEL

Value & Benefits

Time and Effort

Curation as Black Box

BENEFITS MODEL

Digital Assets

Activity and Process

Time and Effort

COSTS MODEL

Value & Benefits

Time and Effort

Curation as Black Box

BENEFITS MODEL

ECONOMIC MODELMaintaining stakeholder incentives and the flow of resources to sustain assets

Economic Sustainability Reference Model

Operational Managers Senior Managers Funders & Investors

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

Economic lifecycle: the dynamic pattern, or sequence of events, against which the sustainability strategy operates;

Sustainability conditions: the conditions the sustainability strategy must address in order to achieve sustainability;

Key entities: the key elements of the economic environment – digital assets, the curation process, and stakeholders – whose properties and relationships shape the circumstances in which the sustainability strategy operates;

Economic uncertainties: frictions and obstacles that may potentially act to impede the ability of a repository to achieve economic sustainability; the sustainability strategy must anticipate these uncertainties and if necessary, mitigate them.

Components of a Sustainability Strategy

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

The ESRM as it appears within the 4C Report on this topic ...

http://4cproject.eu/community-resources/outputs-and-deliverables/ms9-draft-economic-sustainability-reference-model

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

The 4C ESRM Questionnaire (Appendix 1)

http://4cproject.eu/community-resources/outputs-and-deliverables/ms9-draft-economic-sustainability-reference-model

Please go to the community resources section of the 4C project website and let us know what you think of the outputs from the project.

The project runs until January 2015

http://4cproject.eu/community-resources

• One of the big drivers for looking into the cost of preservation is to be able to offer realistic and cost effective preservation services to others.

• Understanding costs can support strategic planning.

• Understanding costs can support tactical decision-making.

• Understanding costs can provide evidence of cost-effectiveness and value.

• Clarifying and publishing the cost of digital curation can be used to enhance an organisation’s credibility. But this must be done along with the context of how the costs were calculated

• Understanding economic drivers can help to strategically align an organisation

COSTS BENEFITS SUSTAINABILITYINCENTIVES

Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation

“One of the greatest risks we run in not preserving our own digital assets for ourselves is that we simultaneously cease to preserve our own viability as institutions.”

K. Skinner and M. Schultz, A Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation (Atlanta, GA: Educopia Institute, 2010)

Budgets are hard to secure and digital preservation remains a difficult case to argue so collaboration with like-minded organisations and the establishment of shared services should support the arguments and drive down the cost.

Photo credit: Trent Strohm, FlickR

See you in Barcelona ...?

18-20 November 2013http://www.educopia.org/events/ANADPII

Registration open until November 18th