Home > Resource Centre > Briefing Papers > Building Trust Through Repository Self-Assessment
By Andrew McHugh, University of Glasgow
Subject-based and institutional digital repositories are increasingly being hailed as the preferred means for safeguarding the future accessibility of digital information. Repositories will not only store digital materials, but also act to limit the threats that are posed to their authenticity, integrity and understandability over time. Consequently, they are being increasingly relied upon to facilitate curation for a wide range of digital content. Defined more broadly than in mere technological terms, repositories should encompass associated systems, policies, procedures and people and must be considered in terms of the organisational, financial, legal and technological contexts within which digital content is collected, managed, accessed and utilised. Regrettably, within what remains an immature discipline, there are few available assurances of the effectiveness of repositories' adopted approaches, and little evidence of a consensus on what success for digital repositories actually means. The fundamental question is often expressed in terms of trustworthiness; of the repositories claiming to offer information preservation or curation services, which ones can actually be trusted to do so? Information creators, curators and users, as well as funding bodies and other external agencies each have a vested interest in determining the answer to this question.
DRAMBORA (Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment) is a toolkit that was developed jointly by the DCC and DigitalPreservationEurope [external] following a series of pilot repository audits undertaken by the DCC in 2006 and 2007. It presents a methodology for self-assessment that encourages organisations to establish a comprehensive self-awareness of their objectives, activities and assets before identifying, assessing and managing the risks implicit within their organisation. Its fundamental aim is to help institutions to create, aggregate and present evidence that demonstrates that they are equipped to act as stewards for our digital resources.
The purpose of the DRAMBORA toolkit is to help auditors:
DRAMBORA is designed to guide the auditor through the self-assessment process, using a similar analytical method to that which an external auditor would use to examine the repository's activities.
Three principle applications have been identified for DRAMBORA:
DRAMBORA promotes a bottom-up approach to repository assessment, and is not tied to any formal benchmarking standard. The organisation itself sets the scope of the audit and the benchmark against which it will be assessed. Nevertheless, DRAMBORA can be used extremely successfully in association with existing objective criteria such as the Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification: Criteria and Checklist (TRAC) or the nestor Catalogue of Criteria for Trusted Repositories.
Organisations that complete the DRAMBORA self-assessment process will:
Organisations that complete the DRAMBORA self-assessment process will:
"By undergoing an examination of their processes, infrastructure, and information-management competence, institutions, information holders, and service providers can obtain a trusted, certified status that provides a sense of reassurance to their various stakeholders. Conversely, where practices are of insufficient quality, audits can highlight this. Publishing the outcomes at least internally can be used to promote higher standards or to alert potential users to shortcomings."
— S. Ross; A. McHugh (2005). "Audit and Certification: Creating a Mandate for the Digital Curation Centre" [external], RLG DigiNews, Vol. 9 No. 5, ISSN 1093-5371.
"What constitutes success in a digital repository can only be addressed in context, specifically the context of the purpose the repository serves and of the environment in which it operates. No repository can be said to be truly successful in a meaningful sense unless it fulfils its purpose. Thus, criteria for success must be derived from its statement of purpose. Similarly, the metrics for estimating success against the criteria must be formulated in light of the culture, constraints and opportunities existing in the environment."
— Kenneth Thibodeau (2007). "If You Build it, Will it Fly? Criteria for Success in a Digital Repository" [external], Journal of Digital Information, Vol. 8, No. 2, Texas Digital Library.
Date Published: 25 October 2007 | Last Modified: 25 October 2007 | Submit Feedback | web-editor@dcc.ac.uk
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