Digital Curation and Preservation Policies in Scottish HEIs

The JISC-funded ERIS project aims to enhance curation and preservation processes within institutions in order to build confidence amongst researchers in the longevity of repositories. As a first step, a survey was undertaken to collect information on the status of digital curation and preservation policies in Scottish HEIs. The survey, which did not identify any preservation policies endorsed at an institutional level, revealed that repositories are still relatively young, and that preservation is not yet amongst their highest priorities. Effectively, the situation with preservation policies reflects the relative immaturity of repository development, where the need to apply explicit curation policies has still to be acknowledged.

Based on the survey results, the report makes ten recommendations.  These include three significant strategic challenges for HEI management:
• 1) Undertake a risk governance analysis of research outputs to establish the requirements for preservation policies at an institutional level;
• 2) In the context of policy recommendations for the management of research output, introduce preservation policies that cover publications, data and other digital materials;
• 3) Identify and promulgate at an institutional level the roles and responsibilities for preserving research output.

A copy of the survey report can be found here.