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Chapter 2 The Current State of Digital Curation
Pages 17-46

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From page 17...
... The benefits of doing digital curation are increasingly evident, but so are the actual and, often hidden, costs. In this chapter, benefits refer to measurable outcomes, such as the value of persistent access to high-quality and usable digital information products, as well as less tangible benefits, such as more complete and accurate data for decision making.
From page 18...
... It must accommodate the immense increase in quantity of digital information, the many uses and reuses of that information, changing technology, and a continuum of people handling digital information in an array of organizational settings across all sectors. The continued advancement of digital curation involves not only meeting these challenges, but also maturing as a field.
From page 19...
... , the Coalition for Networked Information, the Library of Congress, the NDSA, and the Digital Library Federation, to name a few, raise awareness of digital curation, promote best practices, and provide professional development. Although some standards that support digital curation 7 have been adopted in the United States (e.g., ISO 19115-2 for geospatial metadata and Dublin Core for author, title, and 4 See http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/curation-lifecycle-model.
From page 20...
... Many have adopted policies that indicate a concern with the practice of proper curation of digital information. For instance, the NIH adopted a policy in 2003 that required all sponsored projects with more than $500,000 in direct costs to provide data management plans for sharing their data or to state why data sharing is not possible.
From page 21...
... As shown in Table 2-1, different data repositories relevant to the field of biodiversity informatics have utilized very different data standards. Faced with this plethora of data standards, Biodiversity Informatics Standards (formerly, the Taxonomic Database Working Group, or TDWG 10)
From page 22...
... The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) 13 is also well established and contributing to setting curatorial standards in the field of biodiversity informatics.
From page 23...
... For example, more journals are requiring that data used as the basis of a published article be available for possible reanalysis by readers. Another important shift in the sciences with implications for standards in digital curation is the increased relevance of access to digital information across disciplinary boundaries.
From page 24...
... It is also a testament to the maturation of the field of digital curation. 2.2.4 Digital Curation Standards in the Business Sector In the business sector, as in the sciences, major changes in the use of digital information have led to greater appreciation and advancement of the field of digital curation.
From page 25...
... 18 Professional standards for the design and operation of trusted repositories for digital information (ISO 14721:2003) require a governance structure, business and succession plans, designation of responsibility for data management and preservation, preservation policies, and mechanisms (Smith and Moore, 2007)
From page 26...
... Enhancing information by cleaning data, detecting and correcting errors, and compiling comprehensive metadata can improve its quality and render it valuable. Good-quality digital information requires good-quality digital curation, and developing best practices to ensure good-quality data is another aspect of the maturation of the field of digital curation.
From page 27...
... 2.4 Curating for Durability Preserving digital information has become an increasing concern of digital curation as digital information is repeatedly reaccessed to address new questions and as the technology for handling digital information continues to change. The ephemeral nature of digital data poses significant challenges in all sectors.
From page 28...
... , but it is not exclusive to those formats. Box 2-4 The Loss of Cultural Heritage Through Deterioration of Records and Technological Change Sound recordings are a striking example of cultural heritage data at high risk of loss.
From page 29...
... 2.5.5 Inducements to the Advancement of Digital Curation Among the surest inducements to improved digital curation are the scientific discoveries that have been made possible because of it, through the sophisticated use and reuse of properly curated digital information. Similarly, gains in the business sector that have been possible only through its myriad data-driven strategies and extensive digital assets provide a strong incentive to the further development of digital curation.
From page 30...
... is providing general terms and guidance for its grant applicants. 25 The purpose of the data management plans is to ensure that research results and data collected and produced with public funds are available to the public, to encourage individual investigators to assume responsibility for managing their information assets, to promote good data management practices, and to facilitate data sharing and reuse -- all of which should help to advance the field of digital curation.
From page 31...
... In part, this concern is reflected in governments' commitment to enable broad access to digital information to a wide range of researchers and to allow the private sector and individual citizens to benefit from research findings and data funded through tax revenues. This is viewed as an essential means to stimulate further scientific discovery and maximize return on publicly funded investments in research.
From page 32...
... . While public concerns might lead to more open data and transparency, misuse of digital information and real or perceived invasions of privacy could also result in a backlash against the use of digital information.
From page 33...
... Benefits from digital curation accrue in a variety of ways: through efficiency gains, reductions in operating costs, opportunities to create value by doing things in new ways, and opportunities to market new products or offer new services. Precisely how much value curation adds to digital information and for whom are impossible to measure in the absence of an explicit market for digital products with differential pricing for curated and uncurated data.
From page 34...
... Different metrics might be developed for measuring the types of outcome (direct and indirect) , the time frame in which the benefit is realized, and the type of beneficiary (stakeholders internal to or affiliated with the organization undertaking the curation activity, and stakeholders external to or not affiliated with the organization undertaking the data curation activity)
From page 35...
... project permit the identification of a large percentage of the digital curation costs of a repository in a research environment. The KRDS model also provides a suite of useful tools, including a detailed description of cost variables and units, and an activity model -- known as KRDS2 -- for identifying research data activities outside the repository, with cost implications for digital curation.
From page 36...
... The extent of digital curation activity that occurs in this phase is easily underestimated. This is particularly so when the producers of digital information are performing the curation activities, such as
From page 37...
... . Second, although prearchive curation activities are highly desirable from the perspective of the repository because they accelerate the movement of digital information into preservation infrastructure and can lower costs to a repository, the benefits of prearchive curation activities to data producers are widely variable and not well articulated.
From page 38...
... And costly as digital curation may be, the cost of failing to undertake these activities may be even greater. If irreplaceable digital information assets are lost, destroyed, or become inaccessible or uninterpretable through inadequate or improper curation practices, how can that loss be quantified?
From page 39...
... Conclusion 2.4: Cost models and studies of digital curation costs consistently identify human resources as the most costly component of digital curation. Current cost models are likely to underestimate the costs of curation tasks performed by the creators and producers of digital information, because no techniques have been developed to segregate or measure curation costs prior to accessioning into a repository.
From page 40...
... Recommendation 2.4: Scientific and professional organizations, advocacy groups, and private-sector entities should articulate, explain, and measure the benefits derived from digital curation, including "after-market" benefits, risk mitigation, and opportunities for private-sector investment, innovation, and development of curation technologies and services. The benefits should include outcomes that generate measurable value, as well as less tangible benefits such as the accessibility of digital information over time for scientific research, organizational learning, long-term trend analysis, policy impact analysis, and even personal entertainment.
From page 41...
... 2010. Sustainable Economics for a Digital Planet: Ensuring Long-Term Access to Digital Information.
From page 42...
... 2009. The Fourth Paradigm: Data Intensive Scientific Discovery.
From page 43...
... Pp 21-26 in The Fourth Paradigm: Data Intensive Scientific Discovery, T
From page 44...
... 1996. Preserving Digital Information.
From page 45...
... 2012. Harnessing the benefits of publicly funded research.


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