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4C Partners

dpc
Jisc
Inesc
SBA
Dans
DCC
Deutsche National Bibliothek
Keep Solutions
National Library Estonia
The Royal Library
Statens Arkiver
UK Data Archive
University of Glasgow

D1.2—Sustainability & Benefits Realisation Plan (2)

A consideration of why it is important to sustain the work and the impact 4C is seeking to achieve, which stakeholders are likely to engage with post-project activity (and how they might differ from the current stakeholders), how the project should we go about sustaining its assets and maintaining capacity to promote the aims of the original project, as well as measuring success in achieving these aims, and also what sort of time periods the project should consider in its plans.

Executive Summary

This deliverable sets out the finalised plan for ensuring that the investment made by the European Commission and the project partners into the 4C initiative has the best possible chance of delivering a return and making a long-term difference. It sets out some of the challenges and risks of extending the work that 4C has initiated and speculates on likely routes to sustainability.

The most pressing sustainability issues for the project are:

  • To keep the assets/resources live and up to date
  • To appropriately deal with ownership/use of previously gathered sensitive data
  • To address some/all of the issues highlighted in the roadmap
  • To ensure someone has ownership of the problem/space

The benefits that the post project group is looking to realise are:

  • Creation of a self-sustaining coalition that will further the original values of the 4C project
  • A raised awareness of the key concepts associated with the economics of digital curation
  • An ongoing resource that facilitates the exchange of data about the economics of digital curation
  • A roadmap that forms the basis for future action by appropriate organisations

The core proposals for the sustainability and benefits realisation plan are as follows:

  • Assets will be prioritised according to how important they are beyond the duration of the project:
    • The Curation Costs Exchange (CCEx) will be maintained and further developed. The data used to feed it will be kept up to date and additional data sought. The commitment to maintain and develop it will be reviewed periodically
    • The newly developed Digital Curation Sustainability Model (DCSM) will be further developed if the community validates and supports the model
    • The progress of the Roadmap will be reviewed periodically
    • The deliverables from the project will be kept available and have DOIs assigned
    • The initial reviews will be at one year after the end of the project

Principles

  • Where possible this will be done through an open source / crowd-sourced development process
  • Current partners will be invited to join a post-project coalition (PPC) that will contribute "in kind" (probably through the provision of people and infrastructure)
  • Where allowed by the data providers, the data assets will be taken on by a trusted third party organisation—that has appropriate data safeguards already in place—working in a related field
  • Key points in the roadmap will be addressed by the coalition and a related stakeholder network. The coalition and the related network will take the lead on the items set out in the Roadmap.

Questions of organisation and governance are discussed and a proposal put forward. What will happen to the principal products and key assets of the project is also discussed. The report concludes with a proposed time line.

icon D1.2 - Final Sustainability & Benefits Realisation Plan (781.2 kB)