Stewardship of Digital Assets

Background

With regard to academic content, the domain and process have been tentatively defined as follows:

• Scope:

• Digital content produced in the course of research, teaching, and learning
• That have lasting value (to the creator(s), to the institution, and/or to the scholarly community)
• That have no other more obvious archival home
• Digital content that supports research, teaching, and learning, which has lasting value and is at risk
• Whether purchased, acquired under licensed, or included by reference to open-access Internet resources
• Whether hosted locally, externally by a third party under the terms of a license or service level agreement, or available on the open internet

• Methodology

• Consultation with stakeholders
• In their roles with respect to the content (producer, user, owner, manager)
• In their roles with respect to the business of the University (researcher, teacher, learner, content steward, administrator)
• In their various disciplines
• Strategies
• Survey of Faculty
• Meeting with standing senate committees (on campus, systemwide)
• Meeting with standing administrative committees
• Ad hoc meetings with key stakeholder groups, e.g. of PIs, of of “stewards” (libraries, data centers, data collection managers)
• Consultation questions
• What digital content do you produce?
• What content do you require that you do not produce yourself?
• How and by whom is the above content managed
• What the long-term value of the content to you; to others?
• What are the key obstacles to and requirements for persistent management of and access to the above content (obstacles include technical, legal, organizational, financial, cultural, and other ones)?
• What strategies should be considered (by whom) to reduce the obstacles and meet the requirements?
• What projects should be undertaken to explore systemwide issues and test potential solutions?
• Gathering expert opinion, from:
• Industry leaders
• Solution providers
• Exemplary programs (e.g. NSDCC, ICPSR, etc)
• Leaders at peer universities
• Conducting focused research, e.g.:
• Literature review
• Surveys and interviews with key informants
• Environmental scan(s) e.g. of current, good, and best practices
• Review of preservation strategies and technologies

• Working group composition

• A small group of experts and visionaries
• Able to think across and represent the needs and interests of diverse stakeholders and constituencies
• Open to different strategies and solutions
• With breadth of perspective sufficient to enable the group to be conversant with faculty, administrative, technology, legal/policy/regulatory and other key issues

With regard to UC’s business and administrative records, the domain and process have been tentatively defined as follows:

• Stakeholders:

• The stewards (records managers, archivists, librarians)
• The enablers of stewardship (CIOs, data center managers, Vice Chancellors for Administration, Controllers, Risk Managers)
• The producers of stewarded assets (office workers, analysts, registrars, controllers)
• The users of stewarded assets (Regents, Legislature, management, the press, UC media people, scholars)

• Questions for stakeholder consultation:

• What digital assets should be the focus? For consideration:
• University of California data and recorded information, in its final format: (a) Produced by UC; (b) Used by UC; (c) About UC
• How and by whom is the above content managed?
• What is the long-term value of the content to you; to others?
• What are the key obstacles to and requirements for persistent management of and access to the above content (obstacles include technical, legal, organizational, financial, cultural, and other ones)?
• What strategies should be considered (by whom) to reduce the obstacles and meet the requirements?
• What projects should be undertaken to explore possible solutions?

• Methods:

• Consult with stakeholders, e.g. presentation(s) to key committees
• Gather expert opinion, e.g. facilitated brainstorming session(s)
• Conduct focused research e.g. into
• the current situation within UC
• best practices and benchmarks at peer and other comparable institutions
• Report to ITGC periodically and then finally with strategic recommendations and priorities

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