SHERPA DP is a two year project funded by the JISC. The purpose of this project is to create a collaborative, shared preservation environment for the SHERPA project http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/ framed around the OAIS Reference Model. The project would bring together the SHERPA institutional repository systems with the preservation repository established by the Arts and Humanities Data Service to create an environment that fully addresses all the requirements of the different phases within the life cycle of digital information.

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.

The AHDS has recently been funded under the JISC FAIR programme to develop a new flexible model for managing collections. The project aims to develop a partnership model between the AHDS and data creators / institutions that ensures that potential users of digital collections in the HE research and teaching communities are able to successfully locate, cross-search and access these collections wherever they are located, whilst ensuring that their long-term preservation is catered for.

The AHDS is, in partnership with the Sherpa Project at the University of Nottingham, conducting a feasibility study on the preservation of e-prints. The study is addressing three fundamental issues: the requirements for preserving e-print content; organisational models that would best ensure their long-term preservation and continued access; and implementation scenarios, including life cycle and cost modelling.