Resources
This page provides links to and short descriptions for some of the publicly available resources we have produced. You will find additional material such as other reports and books, recent talks and presentations, and published articles by staff listed on our publications page.
Cost-benefit
The Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) website provides access to a wide range of helpful cost-benefit materials including: a Factsheet; User Guide; KRDS Activity Cost Model “Lite” and “Detailed” templates; and a KRDS Benefits Analysis Toolkit, for research data management and curation. KRDS is also suitable more generally for cost/benefit for digital preservation with minor modifications by the user. All these materials are on open-access. The materials will not be updated but remain current and are still widely downloaded and used.
Some of the applications that we ourselves have made of KRDS have extended the KRDS benefits analysis toolkit towards a more stakeholder focussed presentation of results. An open-access example produced for the University of Bath is Benefits from Research Data Management in Universities for Industry and Not-for-Profit Research Partners.
For a more recent view, designed for a social science audience but of wider applicability, see the Cost-Benefit Advocacy Toolkit we produced for CESSDA in 2017. This toolkit is comprised of: Three factsheets - Benefits (KRDS benefits and more recent material), Costs (KRDS costs, 4C ,etc.), and Return on Investment (evidence from impact studies and for “costs of inaction”); Two worksheets - the Archive Development Canvas (a non-profit archive version of the Business Model Canvas), and the Benefits Summary for a Data Archive (an updated social science version of the KRDS Benefits Framework); Four case studies; and a user guide. All these materials are on open-access.
There are also KRDS Supplementary Materials on the identification of long-lived digital datasets for the purposes of cost analysis, from our costs data survey. These are now largely historic and users are advised to use the Curation Costs Exchange if seeking current data.
Impact
We have worked closely with John Houghton over a number of years to develop economic approaches to quantifying benefits from research data curation and data sharing and assessing their impact. The Value and Impact of Data Sharing and Curation: A synthesis of three recent studies of UK research data centres provides the shortest and most accessible overview of the methods, key findings and lessons learnt. The individual reports are also available on open-access: The Value and Impact of the Archaeology Data Service; The Value and Impact of the British Atmospheric Data Centre; and the Economic Impact Evaluation of the Economic and Social Data Service. A new fourth report in the series The Value and Impact of the European Bioinformatics Institute has since extended this work to explore the value and economic impact of data sharing and curation across bio-informatics and life sciences.
Digital Preservation Technology
We regularly edit and author a wide range of guidance and reports on digital preservation technology which are made available on open access to the community by clients such as the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) and The National Archives (TNA).
The DPC Technology Watch reports are intended as an advanced introduction to specific issues in IT, standards and tools for those charged with establishing or running services for long term access. The reports available on open access include: Preserving Email; Preserving Moving Picture and Sound; Intellectual Property Rights for Preservation; Digital Forensics and Preservation; Web-Archiving; Preservation, Trust, and Continuing Access for e-Journals; Preserving eBooks; The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model: Introductory Guide (2nd Edition), and Personal Digital Archiving.
If you are interested in cloud storage then you can also look at the Cloud Storage and Digital Preservation Guidance and the five accompanying cloud storage case studies linked from the TNA Preserving Digital Collections page, that were prepared for the The National Archives.
Digital Preservation Policies and Strategies
Our JISC funded study provided an outline model framework for institutional digital preservation policies and implementation clauses. Although focussing on the UK Higher and Further Education sectors, the study draws widely on policy and implementations from other sectors and countries and will be of interest to those wishing to develop policy and justify investment in digital preservation within a wide range of institutions. It was produced in 2008 and the framework remains current, but a web search can be used to update and expand the bibliography for organisational policies listed (for example, see here for a synthesised list).
A significant part of our work on national strategies is also available on open access. For example in the area of e-journal archiving and continued access our reports and proposed national strategies for Denmark, Germany, and the UK are available together with a white paper focussing the economic case for e-journal archiving and outlining emerging good practice in terms of policy and procedures for institutions.
Digital Preservation Handbook
Illustration by Jørgen Stamp digitalbevaring.dk CC BY 2.5 Denmark
We have worked with the Digital Preservation Coalition to produce a second edition of the Digital Preservation Handbook with funding from The National Archives, Britsh Library, Jisc and the ARA. This remains the most extensive and authoritative open access guide to digital preservation. It has been online since 2002 and was based on the printed Handbook Preservation Management of Digital Materials co-authored by Maggie Jones and Neil Beagrie.
Digital Preservation and Research Data Presentations
A series of powerpoint presentations are available from Neil Beagrie’s slideshare page. These cover a wide range of subjects and work undertaken over a period of 20 years in digital preservation and research data management.