The aim of this project is to develop a digital preservation assessment tool for use within the UK HE/FE and research, learning and teaching communities. The proposal will provide those responsible for managing digital resources in a variety of institutional settings, including libraries, archives, data centres, computer services and research teams, with a valuable tool for identifying the preservation needs of their digital holdings. It will do so in a way which allows scarce resources to be focussed on those assets where the risk of loss and cost of loss is greatest.

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The project will be carried out in three stages. An early deliverable will be a report assessing the feasibility of modifying the existing NPO PAS methodology to handle digital objects. The report will examine the varying technological and organisational needs of different digital asset types. It will also define the requirements that must be met by a tool for assessing preservation requirements for digital materials in a variety of institutional settings (such as a library, an archive, a research team and a service provider.) It will map these requirements to the existing NPO PAS tool to determine if this is an appropriate model for development.

The project will then proceed to its second phase with the development, and internal testing, of an assessment tool. The third phase will see external piloting of the tool at institutions including The National Archives (TNA), The British Library (BL) and the School of Advanced Studies of the University of London (SAS). Project staff will evaluate the pilots through a mixture of questionnaires and interviews. Experience from the pilots will guide revision of the tool, which will then be trialled in a wider beta-testing phase; some institutions have already been identified for this phase and more will be recruited during the project. A final version of the tool with accompanying guidance, and a project report, will conclude the JISC-funded period of the project.

Dissemination activities to promote awareness and use of the tool will commence shortly before the first external pilots and continue throughout the project. The partners will seek the involvement of the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) in this phase of the project. A valuable part of the NPO's PAS methodology is the central collection of survey data from organisations who use the PAS. This allows the NPO to build up a coherent national picture of preservation needs and challenges. A similar service would be extremely valuable for establishing a national view of digital preservation needs.. The Digital Preservation Coalition is willing to coordinate the processing of outputs from individual surveys to create this national picture, a task which is well-aligned with its national and cross-sectoral role in digital preservation.

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The tool's development will be undertaken by two institutions which have extensive experience with the organisational and technical challenges which can be presented by the preservation of a wide variety of types of digital asset. The project will also include trialling by partners with experience of use of the NPO's PAS tool and by a variety of UK HE organisations. Whilst the project's goals will be directed towards the needs of the JISC community, the involvement of organisations such as TNA and the BL will ensure that its results have broader applicability, and hence lead to a more sustainable solution. This will be of benefit both to JISC and to other sectors and will aid in identifying areas of common concern between JISC and areas such as national and local government.

The project's primary development partners will be the Digital Archives Department at ULCC and the AHDS, with ULCC acting as the lead institution for JISC. These two institutions will carry out the research to identify the components and methods to be used within the tool and produce the toolset itself.

AHDS is a national service funded by JISC and the AHRB to collect, preserve and promote the reuse of digital resources in research, learning and teaching in the arts and humanities.. In addition to developing significant in-house expertise in preservation issues and processes, the AHDS has been at the forefront of research into digital preservation. The AHDS has undertaken a LIC-funded project to establish guidelines for digital archiving, and a follow-up BL funded project to create a workbook, which resulted in the highly-acclaimed 'Preservation Management of Digital Materials Workbook' published by the British Library. The AHDS is currently investigating e-print preservation as part of SHERPA and has recently contributed to the JISC 'Long-term Retention and Reuse of e-Learning Objects and Materials' study.

ULCC's Digital Archives Department offers digital archiving and preservation services, including web-based access to a variety of resource types, for a number of public-sector clients. Its largest customer is TNA, for whom it operates the National Digital Archive of Datasets (NDAD) as well as having provided consultancy in areas relating to the establishment of TNA's own digital archive. ULCC's staff have provided training in digital preservation and electronic records management for organisations including the Society of Archivists, the DPC, Capita Group and the Archive Skills Consultancy.

The project has the active backing of the DPC who will play a key role in the dissemination and sustainability elements of the project. TNA and the BL will partner in the piloting and evaluation of the assessment tool and will also contribute their expertise and experience with use and development of the NPO's PAS tool. The NPO will provide input on the tool's development and assist with dissemination. Two other academic institutions will also participate in the pilot and evaluation phase. These are the School of Advanced Study of the University of London and Kings College London. Further institutions will be recruited for second-stage beta testing. At present, strong interest has been expressed from UCL Library, Oxford University Digital Library and the D-Space project at Cambridge and we expect to recruit further institutions for this phase.

The Digital Preservation Coalition is a supporter of the proposal and will play a role in the advisory board for the project as well as providing a key supporting role in the long-term sustainability of the project's outputs and aiding in promoting the project's results.

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Kevin Ashley at ULCC will be the project lead; he has managed digital preservation activities at ULCC for the past 10 years. The AHDS Preservation Services and Projects Manager will be the lead staff member at AHDS. Vanessa Marshall and Alison Walker at NPO and Helen Shenton at the BL have extensive knowledge of the development of the original NPO PAS tool. Adrian Brown at TNA is closely involved with the development of PRONOM.

Contact details: Kevin Ashley, Head of Digital Archives Dept, ULCC; [K.Ashley@ulcc.ac.uk] ; Tel 020 7692 1379; Fax 020 7692 1234 Post: ULCC, 20 Guilford Street, LONDON WC1N 1DZ

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* Full Project Proposal PDF document, 110KB | RTF document, 99KB

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