DPC

The Digital Humanities Research Hub at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, invites submissions for the inaugural Born-Digital Collections, Archives and Memory conference, to be hosted at the University of London from 2-4 April 2025 in collaboration with colleagues from Aarhus University, the British Library, and the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme at the British Museum.

The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) has launched an updated version of its Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM) today.

Designed to enable rapid benchmarking of an organization’s digital preservation capability, DPC RAM is a digital preservation maturity modelling tool which aims to be applicable for organizations of any size in any sector, and for all content of long-term value. It uses existing good practice to offer a model which is easy to understand, quick to apply and is freely available for anyone to use.

We're pleased to announce the release of version 3 of the Digital Preservation Coalition's maturity modelling tool: the Rapid Assessment Model, otherwise known as DPC RAM.

We have been collating feedback from you all since our last RAM revision in 2021, and this has been incredibly useful for alerting us to potential revisions and additions - so thanks very much to everyone who contributed. We've also had a review and expansion of what might broadly be termed ethical issues. But don't panic, we haven't made any drastic changes to the model - we certainly don't want to compromise the potential for analysing maturity over time. Hopefully we have managed to sharpen the existing text, remove ambiguity and ensure RAM encapsulates the latest in digital preservation good practice whilst keeping it quick and easy to use.

Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM)

DPC's Rapid Assessment Model (version 3) (PDF) - This document includes introductory information about the history and structure of the model, details of how it should be used, and the model itself. The document also includes a RAM worksheet that can be printed out and used to carry out a RAM assessment.

DPC RAM assessment spreadsheet (XLSX) - This assessment spreadsheet can be used to record the results of an assessment using DPC RAM. As well as recording your assessment (current and target levels as well as additional context), it also provides visualizations of your results and a new tab which can be used to visualize results over time.

Forward plan template

DPC RAM Forward plan template (DOCX) - This template can be used to create a forward plan based on gaps identified by a RAM assessment. The template can be adapted and edited to suit individual needs.

Translations

Translations of DPC RAM and our other resources are carried out by volunteers within the community. Translations of the current version of DPC RAM will be added to this page as they are made available.

Translations of previous versions of DPC RAM are available. 

See our acknowledgements page for further details on our translators and information on how to contribute.

Changes from Version 2 to Version 3

This version of the Model shows key changes in Version 3 which have been highlighted in yellow.