Digital Preservation Policy

A PDF version of the Digital Preservation Policy is available for viewing and download.

Introduction

As a world-leading research-intensive institution, the University of Edinburgh produces a high volume of diverse digital resources. These digital resources – and the systems that underpin them – support not only local operations, research, and teaching but also global knowledge sharing and community engagement. In line with the Digital Strategy for the University’s Digital Estate, which is integral to Strategy 2030, this Digital Preservation Policy ensures that the Digital Estate acts as an effective gateway to the University’s digital resources over time. 

Digital preservation at the University responds to user needs and legal requirements and reflects principles of responsible custodianship. Implementation of this Policy helps protect against cyber threats and supports a seamless and flexible experience for staff, students, and partners through continuity and managed change. Digital preservation, implemented collaboratively within a rationalised digital environment, will support financial and operational sustainability for the University and its Digital Estate in the long term. 

The infrastructures and systems developed to enable and maintain University digital resources cannot sustain endless growth. Systems reach end-of-life, new technologies emerge, and the ways people use and engage with information and tools evolve. To maintain access to vital information assets required to support our many communities over time and to sustain the legacy of our next 400 years, the University must take action to implement digital preservation across the entire digital lifecycle.   

This Policy defines the values and principles of the University’s digital preservation service, led by the Library and University Collections (L&UC) and supported across the Information Services Group. To successfully sustain our digital legacies, every member of the University community has a part to play.  

Policy Aim

This Policy outlines how the University of Edinburgh manages the full digital lifecycle of information assets in its custody, from creation to long-term preservation or disposal. This Policy describes the roles and responsibilities of University staff, students, and affiliates throughout the lifecycle of digital information. It provides the high-level principles that govern systems and processes and makes clear the main standards, frameworks, and communities of practice that inform decision-making. Digital preservation implemented through digital lifecycle management will enable the University to maintain reliable and authentic digital information for the long-term to support legal compliance, institutional memory, and internal and external research and teaching. 

Essential Purpose

While L&UC has made some progress towards implementing long-term digital preservation, risk and gap analyses have established that meaningful progress will require interventions earlier in the lifecycle of digital information. For example, legacy digital information stored on physical media – such as CDs and DVDs – continues to decay. The components of the media degrade and files themselves become obsolete and difficult or impossible to access with commonly available software. In time this decay will happen to all systems and media that fall into disuse. Similarly, when old content is migrated from one system to another, vital context about those resources is often lost, making it difficult or impossible to understand what the content is or how it can be used. 

This on-going delay to digital preservation action poses a significant risk to the University – both risk of losing information of important legal, business, or historical significance and also risk of keeping digital information that should be deleted. This Policy aims to establish the requirement to intervene earlier in the lifecycle of digital information to mitigate these risks and establish digital preservation as business-as-usual across the University. 

Roles and Responsibilities

Overall responsibility and risk ownership for digital preservation, which has an impact on the quality, security, and sustainability of the entire University Digital Estate over time, sits with the Chief Information Officer and Librarian to the University. Priorities and objectives for digital preservation are set by ISG leadership with advice and guidance from Library Senior Management. These risk owners ensure appropriate funding and support are allocated to ensure continuity of digital preservation. 

Digital preservation requires input and support from every member of staff, student, and affiliate (such as an external consultant) who interacts with digital information or systems throughout the digital lifecycle. L&UC leads the digital preservation service and provides guidance on best practice but cannot achieve sustainable progress without participation from custodians earlier in the lifecycle.  

Library and University Collections: 

• Manages the long-term digital preservation service on behalf of the University
• Oversees appraisal and sets criteria for transfer to L&UC with input from the Records Manager
• Advises on best practice for management of digital resources and systems for long-term preservation
• Implements or advises on digital preservation strategies for specific digital resources or systems
• Co-ordinates requirements gathering for digital preservation solutions
• Develops and publishes guidance and training on digital preservation for staff and students
• Monitors and supports compliance with this Policy 

Records Manager:  

• Provides guidance on retention schedules and metadata creation and management for current information and systems
• Ensures compliance with legal frameworks and relevant information governance best practice 

Learning Teaching Web:  

• Includes digital preservation provisions in education and learning platforms wherever possible
• Co-delivers Web Lifecycle Management for the University's Web Estate
• Contributes to requirements gathering for digital preservation solutions
• Integrates digital preservation principles into digital skills and training where appropriate
• Advises on best practice for learning and teaching technology as well as on emerging web technologies and their implications for University web archives 

IS Apps: 

• Collaborates with L&UC to support understanding of current digital information and systems to improve strategy building for long-term preservation
• Develops and procures systems which incorporate preservation planning in the design where appropriate and/or a pathway to long-term preservation with L&UC
• Includes digital preservation requirements in any roadmaps for the replacement of systems and infrastructure (particularly in relation to data migration)
• Creates strategies and policies that comply with this Policy and any associated guidance 

ITI: 

• Manages storage infrastructure for digital information selected for digital preservation based on requirements of Digital Library Systems and Development for both current and archived content
• Advises on standards and best practice for information storage to support sustainable and responsive preservation planning  

HR and Finance: 

• Advise on legal and regulatory frameworks which govern special classes of digital information
• Contribute business needs to digital preservation requirements  

University Staff and Students:  

• Create preservable, sustainable digital resources based on L&UC guidance and individual sector best practice
• Record and store relevant metadata in interoperable formats based on L&UC guidance for metadata creation
• Deposit golden copy research data, publications, and outputs with an appropriate L&UC service or a trusted alternative service
• Input into user needs gathering   

Scope

This section describes digital resources in scope for transfer to L&UC for long-term preservation. L&UC currently holds a broad range of digital resources, from multi-media artworks to large datasets created as part of climate change research. L&UC also includes the University's own digital archives comprised of information generated as part of normal business, research, and teaching. This Policy does not define the resources that L&UC might retain (please see collecting policies linked below), but rather describes the types of digital resources considered for long-term preservation. 

Digital resources in scope for long term preservation are typically either:  

• ‘Born digital’: created using software and hardware (such as a spreadsheet or database), stored in digital format, and accessed using software and hardware
• ‘Made digital’: created in a physical form (such as paper or sculpture) and recreated into a digital object through scanning or other digital imaging
• Digital information stored on legacy technology, such as obsolete tape formats  

Born-digital, made-digital, or legacy digital resources will be transferred to L&UC which are within the scope of collecting policies and which can be reasonably acquired and supported within L&UC infrastructure. To support information compliance, evidential standards, business analysis, and research and teaching, digital resources must also be accompanied by adequate metadata to provide meaningful context and support authenticity. These digital resources include:  

• Born-digital resources created through University business, research, and teaching activities that have been selected for long term preservation
• Born-digital and made-digital resources created externally and brought into University custody, such as a donation or purchase
• Made-digital surrogates of physical objects in University custody created for the purposes of:
  • Preservation due to decay or obsolescence of the physical original
  • Access to broaden target audiences and widen research potential
  • Outreach and advocacy to promote the University and its heritage
  • Documentation to support insurance evaluations and loan agreements
• Metadata
• Metadata-only objects
• Software
• Hardware 

Digital preservation will be implemented in different ways for different information depending on its function and purpose. Unstructured data, for example, may require richer metadata to describe relationships between individual documents or systems than structured data maintained in a logical system. Legal frameworks and sector requirements also impact how digital information can be preserved. Different information types, therefore, will have individual implementation strategies.  

Standards and Frameworks

L&UC makes every effort to comply with international digital preservation standards where possible and practical. Staff responsible for day-to-day operations of digital preservation participate in communities of practice to understand emerging solutions and to contribute expertise and support where appropriate. Relevant communities and research areas are consulted to support continuous review of the human and environmental impact of the University’s digital preservation activities. L&UC recognises the impact of digital preservation on the choices about what digital information remains accessible over time and therefore becomes part of shared historical memory. As such, L&UC strives to implement practices to address systemic bias and to invite feedback and open dialogue about issues of inclusion, diversity, and fairness.  

Standards and communities of practice that inform digital preservation activities include: 

• OAIS: the Open Archival Information System (ISO 14721) framework for digital preservation
• PREMIS: Preservation Metadata Implementation Strategies and Data Dictionary for preservation metadata
• Dublin Core and DCMI Metadata Terms: set of elements for describing a broad range of digital resource types as well as properties, classes, datatypes, and vocabulary encoding schemes (ISO 15836)
• WARC: Web Archive preservation format (ISO 28500)
• CoreTrustSeal requirements: core characteristics of trustworthy data repositories (basis of CoreTrustSeal Certification)
• Digital Preservation Coalition: international community of institutions with a stake in digital preservation
• Open source: implementing open-source software and contributing to open-source projects whenever possible 

Further Guidance and Glossary

More information about digital lifecycle management and guidance on implementing this Policy can be found on the L&UC Digital Preservation web pages: https://library.ed.ac.uk/heritage-collections/collections-and-search/archives/digital-archives-and-preservation/what-is-digital-preservation  

For general information about digital preservation and definitions of common terms, please refer to the Digital Preservation Handbook: https://www.dpconline.org/handbook/