Implement Digital Preservation - Digital Preservation Coalition

Level up with DPC RAM

DPCRAMPyramid

The DPC’s Rapid Assessment Model is a helpful tool for assessing an organization’s maturity with digital preservation. It allows you to consider both where you are currently and where you would like to be, and highlight gaps in your current digital preservation capacity.

This resource is designed to help you work out how to address those gaps and move up the levels of RAM. For each of the 11 sections of RAM there are helpful tips, links to useful resources and case studies from others who have already tackled some of these challenges.

If there are resources that have been helpful for you that aren’t included here, do contact us and let us know. Similarly, if you would like to share your own case study about how you have tackled a specific area covered by DPC RAM we would love to hear from you. We have a number of topics we are particularly keen to hear about and are actively looking for community members to blog for us.

Select a section of DPC RAM to find tips, resources and case studies to help you move forward (DPC Members please login to the website to access this resource):

RAM Section	Tips	Resources	Case Studies
A - Organizational viability Governance, organizational structure, staffing and resourcing of digital preservation activities.
B - Policy and strategy Policies, strategies, and procedures which govern the operation and management of the digital archive.
C - Legal and ethical Management of legal rights and responsibilities, compliance with relevant regulation and adherence to ethical codes related to acquiring, preserving and providing access to digital content.
D - IT capability Information Technology capabilities for supporting digital preservation activities.
E - Continuous improvement Processes for the assessment of current digital preservation capabilities, the definition of goals and the monitoring of progress.
F - Community Engagement with and contribution to the wider digital preservation community.
G - Acquisition, transfer and ingest Processes to acquire or transfer content and ingest it into a digital archive.
H - Bitstream preservation Processes to ensure the storage and integrity of digital content to be preserved.
I - Content preservation Processes to preserve the meaning of the digital content and ensure its continued accessibility and usability over time.
J - Metadata management Processes to create and maintain sufficient metadata to support preservation, discovery and use of preserved digital content.
K - Discovery and access Processes to enable discovery of digital content and provide access for users.

This companion resource to DPC RAM was inspired by two ‘RAM Jam’ events hosted in 2021 and 2022 during which DPC Members shared experiences, knowledge and tips on how they had moved forward with different sections of RAM. Many of the tips and links shared, as well as the quotes included in this resource originated from these events.

How often should DPC RAM be used?

DPC RAM has continuous improvement at its core!

Though it can be used for a one-off exercise it is recommended that it is applied on a more regular basis to highlight progress or demonstrate where further resource is required. It has been designed to provide a rapid assessment of current capabilities so it should not be too onerous a task to apply it on a regular schedule.

DPC Members will be encouraged to complete DPC RAM on an annual basis.

"The DPC RAM was an easy tool to understand, straightforward to implement, and took around an hour of my time to complete. The RAM itself was incredibly useful in helping identify our digital preservation strengths, but also areas for future development and work. The RAM is written in such a way as to encourage reflection at an organizational and strategic level, and I found it a useful addition our existing policy and procedural documents."

Tim Evans, Deputy Director, Archaeology Data Service

How should DPC RAM be used?

Applying DPC RAM should be fairly straightforward but there are a few important things to note:

The bulleted lists provided as examples within each of the sections are provided as illustrative examples only - you don’t have to tick them all off before you have attained a level. They may not all apply to the context in which you work, or you may have other things that you do that help you reach that level.
Make an honest and realistic assessment which level best fits your current capability. If you partially meet a level but would like to do some more work in order to sit comfortably within it, the score (for now) should be the level below. You can always plan to hit the higher level next time around!
It is up to you to define the scope of your assessment - you may decide to carry out one DPC RAM assessment for all digital content of long term value held by your organization or you may find it more useful to focus on one stream of content or one department within a larger institution. Use it in whatever way is most useful to you and your institution!

How long will it take to use DPC RAM?

The model is designed to be relatively quick and easy to use for any organization charged with preserving digital information for the long term. Some institutions have applied this model in less than 1 hour. For others it may take longer, particularly if wider consultation with a range of colleagues is required or if multiple streams of digital content are being assessed.

Note that though establishing where your organization is using DPC RAM may be a relatively quick process, it may take longer to consider where you would like to be and to plan actions for moving forward.

“DPC RAM seems straightforward, offers stepwise improvements and covers a broader range of capabilities, not just technical ones. I think that teams with limited resources can be put off undertaking an assessment because they don’t feel they have sufficient time to read through the guidance, understand the model and then carry out a detailed assessment, so they never get round to it. The DPC RAM is much less daunting to complete so I think staff would be encouraged to try it out.”

Alison Spence, Research Information Administrator, University of Glasgow

Who can use DPC RAM?

DPC RAM can be used by any organization with a need to preserve digital information for the long term. It should be possible to apply it regardless of the sector in which you work or the type of information that is being preserved. The maturity levels are based on existing good practice and try to be agnostic to particular preservation strategies or approaches.

DPC RAM for DPC Members

Whilst the model is freely available for anyone to use, DPC Members will have the additional benefit of the ability to benchmark and compare their results with that of other members. The model when applied across the DPC membership will also help facilitate DPC Member Support activities and work planning, enabling the capture of basic information on member needs and highlighting areas where additional support is needed.

“We can see the benefits of the possibility of DPC sending members trends and analysis of members' assessment results. You'd get a feeling of whether you were heading in similar or different directions to your peers and it would potentially pave the way to collaborative working.”

Laura Giles, Digital Archivist, Hull History Centre

What to do after DPC RAM

After completing your DPC RAM assessment you may want to follow up with some further activities:

Share your assessment with colleagues and senior managers within your organization. A copy of the assessment can be used as a conversation starter to talk about where you are now and what areas would benefit from improvement.
Use the results of your assessment as evidence within a business case for digital preservation as it will help to effectively illustrate gaps and priority areas for improvement. The radar chart that is generated when you use the Excel spreadsheet template for RAM provides a helpful visual aid to illustrate any gaps you have highlighted. The Business Case Toolkit may also help with this.
Establish a roadmap or plan of action for the year ahead. If there is a mismatch in your current level and target level for any of the sections of DPC RAM, consider what incremental steps you can start to take in order to improve. How to level up with DPC RAM provides some useful resources related to each section of DPC RAM.
Set priorities, establishing which sections of the model you want to work on first and where you would like to see improvement over the next year.
Include some of the actions coming out of this assessment in your organization's forward planning or staff development processes.
Revise your preservation policy or strategy to ensure it accurately reflects your aspirations.
If you are a DPC Member: Speak to the DPC if you would like to benchmark your own digital preservation capability against that of other member organizations. We will be able to provide you with anonymized comparative information about the membership as a whole that may be of use to you for internal advocacy.

“We think that this tool will be useful for us in terms of advocacy and will be using it for benchmarking as part of our roadmap going forward.”

Edith Halvarsson, Polonsky Fellow - Digital Preservation, Policy and Planning, Bodleian Libraries

Template for building a Business Case

This section provides guidance on the content that will be useful to include in your business case, but it will likely need to be adapted to the structure used in your organization’s template.

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Level up with DPC RAM

RAM Section

Tips

Resources

Case Studies