This section covers processes to create and maintain sufficient metadata to support preservation, discovery and use of preserved digital content. Topics covered in policy statements might include persistent identifiers, metadata to support rights or provenance of digital content, other types of metadata and standards.
British Geological Survey
‘Preservation metadata is metadata that supports the distinct requirements of digital preservation: maintaining the availability, identity, persistence, renderability, understandability and authenticity of digital objects over long periods of time.’ Lavoie and Gartner, 2013, p.2). The preservation strategy describes the processes for preservation metadata capture and the use of permanent identifiers and DOIs.
Authenticity: The data is what it purports to be, is created or sent by the purported person, and at the purported time. This is shown e.g. in the provenance of data and preservation metadata.
British Geological Survey Digital Preservation Policy (2020)
University of Glasgow
In order to support the authenticity of digital resources, detailed metadata will be captured and maintained along with the digital record.
All actions undertaken as part of the preservation process (including any new metadata created as part of the process, e.g. preservation activity, custody/ownership) must also be fully documented in the preservation metadata associated with each record, to provide an audit trail.
A preservation metadata model will be defined and published.
University of Sussex
The library will ensure the reliability of digital content by documenting contextual information about an object in its metadata, which will be saved with it in the repository. We will make this metadata available to researchers who access the digital content.
The library will keep a permanent record of the provenance of digital content. Standard submissions processes will be used to gain control of new digital content and the lifecycle of digital content will be captured and stored in its metadata.
National Archives of Australia
The record must be trusted as an accurate representation of the original record. The Archives will ensure authenticity through the operation of transparent and fully documented preservation strategies, and by capturing and providing the metadata required to describe the content, context and provenance of the record.
Preservation processes that result in any physical or logical change to a digital object will be logged and recorded in the associated metadata, to provide an audit trail. All changes to metadata will themselves be audited.
The relationship between any digital object and its metadata be maintained persistently. A persistent, unique identifier will be assigned to every digital object at the point of ingest, and the recording of this identifier within the associated metadata to provide a persistent link.
National Archives of Australia Digital Preservation Policy (2020)