Preservation strand of Information Environment 09-11
The purpose of the preservation exemplars strand of projects is to exploit the value of recent work in the field of preservation and related activites.
These projects attempted to implement end to end preservation solutions within research groups or institutions with an associated focus on policy.
The following projects were funded.
Projects
| Project | Institution | Description |
|---|
Exemplars focused on preserving an institution's repositories (The KeepIT Project) |
University of Southampton |
Working with various repositories dealing with a vareity of content types to develop bespoke preservation guidance for repositories. |
| Embedding institutional data curation services in research (EIDCSR) |
University of Oxford |
Working with 2 research groups involved with medical imaging and embedding curation into their workflows. |
| Biophysical repositories in the lab (BRIL) |
King's College London |
Working with the Randall Institute to embed preservation and effective information management into the workflow for their repository of structural biology content. |
| Preservation exemplar at King's (PEKIN) |
King's College London |
This project is working with the archives and information management department at King's to support the effective preservation and long term access to committee records and other administrative material. |
What was produced?
The projects provided evidence of best practice in managing preservation and produced guidance, workflow models and in some cases institutional storage requirements for long term preservation. All of the projects addressed the policy requirements of sustainable preservation.
What did the projects achieve?
The KeepIT project worked with exemplar repositories previously funded by JISC and ran a 5 module course open to anyone working in repositories. Feedback from the course was excellent. Through feedback received since the KeepIt course, it is clear that it has influenced new approaches at a number of institutions, not just the project exemplars. Notably, the repository team at LSE used DRAMBORA, a risk assessment tool, not just to identify risks for the repository, but to make a positive case for additional resources to act on those risks. This is evidence that institutions will consider growing repositories as essential infrastructure and will act to strengthen and preserve them when presented with a substantive case. The KeepIt exemplar to see the most impact, because it reached higher levels of the management of the institution, was NECTAR at Northampton University. It chose to use the DAF tool to investigate increasing the scope of the repository to include research data, a choice that will have lasting impact on the repository.
The KeepIt final report is available here
EIDCSR achieved its objectives in that there is now sufficient core infrastructure in place to enable the research groups involved in the 3D Heart Project to document their data, store it securely off-site, browse the documentation, and retrieve data from the long-term file store. In some respects the project achieved more than it had initially set out to, additionally developing data visualisation software and a researcher-facing data management web portal. EIDCSR also informed and inspired work on the SUDAMIH project (led by the same team but funded under the JISC Managing Research Data Programme) which is now feeding into work on the JISC UMF programme of work.
The EIDCSR final report is available here
The BRIL project has been subject to lengthy delays. Final outcomes are still pending.
The final draft of the PEKIN Project is also pending. The project has been highly important for the host institution and is helping to inform practical changes to workflow and policy within King's College London. The Data Management workbook that PEKIN has created is undergoing a lengthy internal review process. It is anticipated that the results will be influential on practice within other institutions.
Relationship to other strands or programmes
Who’s involved?
There are a wide variety of people involved in these projects from preservation specialists, software developers, repository managers and researchers. Preservation has to be a cross cutting exercise so these projects are bringing in a range of people and approaches.
Find out more