The digital universe grew by 62 percent in 2009, but those adding to these resources need to think long term if they want to make best use of their public funding, says a new report funded by the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). Clearly stated preservation policies are essential in guaranteeing that researchers in the future will be able to access and use a digital resource, adds the report by the Digital Preservation Coalition.
The policy should include what content is being preserved and for whom, the objective of the preservation, who is responsible, sources of financial support and how the success of preservation will be measured. But the responsibility needs to be shared between funders, who must articulate the need for data curation, and universities, who need to implement a preservation policy for each digital collection.
The advice comes as the government announces a new 'right to data' so that government-held data sets can be requested and used by the public, and then published on a regular basis.
JISC has invested more than £20 million over the past five years so that students and researchers can have instant and flexible access to a range of the UK's most important archival collections.
The new JISC funded report contain recommendations for institutions, funders and those assessing funding projects and programmes. The analysts anticipate that the template they used to survey the projects could also form a useful blueprint for research in the future.
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