Ensure that data is accessible to both designated users and reusers, on a day-to-day basis. This may be in the form of publicly available published information. Robust access controls and authentication procedures may be applicable.
Create data including administrative, descriptive, structural and technical metadata. Preservation metadata may also be added at the time of creation. Receive data, in accordance with documented collecting policies, from data creators, other archives, repositories or data centres, and if required assign appropriate metadata.
Assign administrative, descriptive, technical, structural and preservation metadata, using appropriate standards, to ensure adequate description and control over the long-term. Collect and assign representation information required to understand and render both the digital material and the associated metadata.
Dispose of data, which has not been selected for long-term curation and preservation in accordance with documented policies, guidance or legal requirements. Typically data may be transferred to another archive, repository, data centre or other custodian. In some instances data is destroyed. The data’s nature may, for legal reasons, necessitate secure destruction.
Migrate data to a different format. This may be done to accord with the storage environment or to ensure the data’s immunity from hardware or software obsolescence.
Undertake actions to ensure long-term preservation and retention of the authoritative nature of data. Preservation actions should ensure that data remains authentic, reliable and usable while maintaining its integrity. Actions include data cleaning, validation, assigning preservation metadata, assigning representation information and ensuring acceptable data structures or file formats.
Plan for preservation throughout the curation lifecycle of digital material. This would include plans for management and administration of all curation lifecycle actions.
