Digital Preservation Coalition - Handbook - Decision Tree

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Interactive Assessment: Selection of Digital Materials for Long-term Retention

Selection > Rights & Responsibilities > Technical / Costs > Documentation & Metadata / Costs

Rights and Responsibilities

Rights 1

Does acquisition automatically confer a preservation responsibility (e.g. legal deposit acquisition /evidential requirements) ?

See: 2.2.2 Organisational issues: Roles - opens in a new window

You answered No to Rights 1 - please answer Rights 2

Rights and Responsibilities

Rights 2

Has preservation responsibility been accepted elsewhere?

Rights and Responsibilities

Rights 3

Do you require a higher degree of preservation commitment or access to this resource than offered elsewhere?

If preservation responsibility has been accepted elsewhere, decisions on whether you might also wish to take on preservation responsibility will include consideration of the following:

Has preservation responsibility been undertaken only for the short-term?
Does the infrastructure of the organisation elsewhere pose any doubts as to the ability to guarantee long-term access to the resource?
Are there any access conditions imposed which your organisation would consider unacceptable?
Has responsibility elsewhere been taken only to mirror the resource, i.e. to provide access but not necessarily to guarantee long-term preservation?

You answered Yes to Rights 2 - please answer Rights 3

You answered No to Rights 3 and thus reached a natural end to the Decision Tree. The following advice is based on your answers to the questions.

Advice

Acquire for use but not preservation.

For further help in developing a policy on selection of digital materials for long-term preservation please go to Guidance

Rights and Responsibilities

Rights 4

Do you have (or can you negotiate) acceptable arrangements for acquisition and/or transfer, including frequency of ingest appropriate to the resource and your business model?

You answered Yes to Rights 1 - please answer Rights 4

You answered No / Don't Know to Rights 2 - please answer Rights 4

You answered Yes to Rights 3 - please answer Rights 4

See: 3.4 Rights management - opens in a new window

Rights and Responsibilities

Rights 5

Re-evaluate acquisition. Is the resource worth acquiring and preserving even if there are undesirable restrictions on accepting the material?

You answered No to Rights 4 - please answer Rights 5

You answered No to Rights 5 and thus reached a natural end to the Decision Tree. The following advice is based on your answers to the questions.

Advice

Acquire the resource but document that long-term preservation may not be feasible.

For further help in developing a policy on selection of digital materials for long-term preservation please go to Guidance

Rights and Responsibilities

Rights 6

Do you have (or can you negotiate) the rights to transfer to different carriers and/or different formats for the purposes of preservation?

You answered Yes to Rights 4 - please answer Rights 6

You answered Yes to Rights 5 - please answer Rights 6

You answered No to Rights 6 and thus reached a natural end to the Decision Tree. The following advice is based on your answers to the questions.

Advice

Acquire the resource but document that long-term preservation may not be feasible.

For further help in developing a policy on selection of digital materials for long-term preservation please go to Guidance