JISC

The Digital Curation Centre is jointly funded by the JISC and the e-Science Core programme. Funding began on 1 March 2004, as a successful outcome of a response to JISC Circular 6/03 by a consortium comprising the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, which together host the National e-Science Centre, UKOLN at the University of Bath, and CCLRC, which manages the Rutherford Appleton and Daresbury Laboratories.

The DCC will support expertise and practice in data curation and preservation, prompting collaboration between the Universities and the Research Councils to ensure that there is continuing access to data of scholarly interest. The initial focus will be on research data, but the policy intention is to also address the preservation needs of e-learning and scholarly communication.

A deluge of data

Scientists and researchers across the UK generate increasingly vast amounts of digital data, with further investment in digitisation and purchase of digital content and information. The scientific record and the documentary heritage created in digital form are at risk, from technology obsolescence and from the fragility of digital media. The JISC and the academic community have already begun to identify a strategic approach and have invested in a number of scoping studies. Building on that work and on the expertise already existing in particular disciplines, the task is now to support UK institutions in storing, managing and preserving these data to ensure their enhancement and continuing long-term use.

We are all Curators now

Digital curation is a new phrase that includes but also goes beyond that of data archiving and digital preservation, to include the active management and appraisal of data over the life cycle of scholarly and scientific interest: it is thus the key to reproducibility and re-use. The overriding purpose of the Centre is continuing improvement in the quality of data curation and digital preservation. The DCC will not be a digital repository, nor an attempt to impose policies and practices of one branch of scholarship upon another, but will have relevance across the full range of scholarly and scientific endeavour, unifying themes include attention to provenance and 'data as evidence'. The challenge will be to provide the platform for collaboration.

Working with other practitioners, the DCC plans to:

• Establish a vibrant research programme, addressing the wider issues of digital curation
• Nurture strong links across existing community of practice, through an Associates Network and engagement with individuals and organisations who act as curators
• Develop services to evaluate tools, methods, standards and policies, acting as a repository of tools and technical information
• Achieve the 'virtuous circle', whereby expertise, experience and requirement feed into the DCC research programme

Start-Up and launch

 The DCC has embarked upon a programme of start-up activities that should result in the formal launch of the Digital Curation Centre in October 2004. The website is in place, and the Helpdesk is taking messages at digitalcuration@ed.ac.uk. Over the coming months the DCC will deliver a Web portal, an e-Journal, an advisory service, and programmes of promotion and outreach, and of standards-based development of registries, testbeds and tools.