Intially conceived as a two year partnership (starting November 2018) between the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), this project was subsequently extended for another two years and completed in February 2023.

The NDA is charged with the complicated task of decommissioning and cleaning the seventeen principal nuclear energy plants in the UK, a task accurately described as the largest and most important environmental restoration programme in Europe. The extended life cycle of the programme, set alongside robust commitments to security, integrity and safety, means the NDA approaches its work with a profound commitment to long-term information management, ensuring the right information is available to the right people in a format they can use and with the confidence that it can be trusted. Therefore, amongst its many challenges, the NDA is by default required to become a trusted leader for information management and digital preservation.

The project draws upon the experience of the DPC and its members to leverage good practice and to advise, guide and develop policy that will enable that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to:

• access and secure critical legacy data and systems

• adapt current data and systems to ensure their long-term viability

• commission data and systems with long term resilience from the outset

The second phase of the project was designed with a greater understanding of the digital preservation challenges of the NDA and includes work on a number of priority areas to build and grow the NDA's digital preservation capability.

The project intended to inform, enhance and extend good practice and standards to benefit the DPC’s whole membership. With this in mind, many of the resources, outputs and findings from the project are being openly shared with the wider digital preservation community.

Key topics being investigated during this project include:

• Measuring digital preservation maturity

• Digital preservation skills

• Preservation of Radioactive Waste Records

• Preservation of a range of types of digital content including audiovisual archives, databases, 3D design and construction records and geospatial data

• Preservation of content held within an EDRMS

• Digitization of paper and photographic records

• Digital preservation system requirements

• Procurement of new IT systems

• Recovering content from portable media

• Defining a designated community

Resources

The following resources were created in conjuntion with this project and are available for reference or use by the wider digital preservation community. Work was also carried out on policy and procedure, including a definition of NDA's designated community:

• DPC’s Rapid Assessment Model - a new digital preservation maturity model for organisations with a need to preserve digital content for the long term (first published September 2019).

• Data Type Series of Technology Watch Guidance Notes - a set of short but informative notes by Artefactual Systems and the DPC on preserving specific content types (published July 2021).

  • Preserving Documents

  • Preserving Email

  • Preserving Spreadsheets

  • Preserving Databases

  • Preserving Raster Images

  • Preserving Moving Images

  • Preserving Audio

  • Preserving CAD

  • Preserving GIS

  • Preserving 3D

• EDRMS Preservation Toolkit - developed by the EDRMS Preservation Taskforce (published July 2021).

• Preserving Born-Digital Design and Construction Records - a Technology Watch Report by A Leventhal and J Thompson on the preservation of 3D design and construction datasets (published December 2021).

• Core requirements for a digital preservation system - 10 core requirements for a preservation system that can provide a starting point for requirements development or be used as tool for assessing current systems (published May 2022)

• Digital preservation requirements for procuring IT systems - this guide notes the requirements that should be considered when procuring an IT system (for example, an EDRMS, DAMS or GIS), that may ultimately contain at least some records or digital content that need to be retained beyond the life of the system (published January 2023)

• DPC Competency Framework - identifies and describes information on the skills, knowledge, and competencies required for successful digital preservation.

• DPC Competency  Audit Toolkit (DPC CAT) - provides a structured process for conducting three skill auditing activities, drawing on the DPC Competency Framework.

• Preserving Geospatial data - a revised Technology Watch Report on the preservation of geospatial data (forthcoming 2023).

• End of Project Report

Events and presentations

The work of the project was shared with the digital preservation community in the following events:

• DPC Rapid Assessment Model introductory webinar - a DPC Members-only webinar (11th September 2019)

• Achieving Criticality of Preservation Knowledge: Sustaining Digital Preservation in the Nuclear Field - a panel session at iPRES conference 2019 (18th September 2019)

• Benchmarking the DPC using RAM - a DPC Members-only webinar (12th December 2019) - Members can login in to view recording

• A year of digital preservation in a nuclear context - a DPC Members-only webinar (8th January 2020) - Members can login in to view recording

• Building a Digital Future : Challenges & Solutions for Preserving 3D Models - a DPC briefing day arising from one of the case studies presented by this project (30th April 2020) - Members can login in to view recording

• Lunch and Learn webinar on DPC RAM - a webinar organised by and for Information and Records Management Society (IRMS) North (27th May 2020)

• The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in Britain: Long Term Preservation of Records and the Development of the Rapid Assessment Model - a webinar organised by and for the European Oil and Gas Archives Network (EOGAN) (30th June 2020)

• Preserving semi-current records: A DPC briefing day - an online briefing day arising in part from the challenge of preserving radioactive waste records (15th July 2020) - Members can login in to view recording

• Database preservation using the Database Preservation Toolkit and SIARD - a practical workshop on database preservation funded through the project (29-30th July 2020) - Members can login in to view recording

• Digital preservation goes nuclear - project highlights and future directions - a webinar to mark the end of the two-year project including a panel session with key project staff from the DPC and NDA (3rd December 2020)

• Unbroken records: A briefing day on Digital Preservation and EDRMS - an online briefing day to share the experiences of the EDRMS Preservation Taskforce and highlight a forthcoming online resource on this topic (20th May 2021)

• Where are we now? Mapping progress with geospatial data preservation - a online briefing day event to discuss current practices in geospatial data preservation (30th March 2022)

• Reliable, Robust and Resilient Digital Infrastructure for Nuclear Decommissioning - presentation at the EOGAN Conference (9th June 2022)

• DPC Competency Framework and Audit Toolkit - Member Preview and Recruitment for Pilot - a webinar for DPC Members to introduce the new DPC Competency Framework (15th June 2022)

• From Ray Cats to DPC RAM (paper) - short paper from iPres 2022 (15th September 2022)

• From Ray Cats to DPC RAM (presentation) - accompanying presentation for the short paper with the same name at iPres 2022 (15th September 2022)

Blogs

You can read more about the work of the project in the following blog posts:

• Digital Preservation in a Nuclear Context - the first six months (14th June 2019)

• A new maturity model for digital preservation (18th June 2019)

• Introducing the DPC RAM (20th September 2019)

• Celebrating World Digital Preservation Day (6th November 2019)

• How do you preserve records from within an EDRMS? (14th April 2020)

• Who wants to work with us on EDRMS Preservation? (28th July 2020)

• Preserving semi-current records - why are we worrying? (29th July 2020)

• Happy Birthday to Ewe (21st September 2020)

• Digital Preservation at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority - looking back and moving forward (2nd December 2020)

• DPC RAM (version 2) - what has changed and why? (7th April 2021)

• Knowledge in, knowledge out: an update on work with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (26th January 2022)

• Reducing the pain of procurement (6th May 2022)

• Reliable, Robust, and Resilient - Digital Preservation in the NDA (30th March 2023)

In November 2023 this project was awarded an NDSA Excellence Award.