The Costs and Economics of Preservation

Objectives –

• To introduce and describe some of the work that has been done to help institutions and research groups understand both the costs and the economics of preservation

• To describe ongoing phases of JISC-funded work that are attempting to further advance understanding and implement approaches in this area

• To give some indication of where collective international effort may be of universal benefit.

Neil Grindley – JISC Programme Manager (Digital Preservation)

The LIFE Project

University College London (UCL) and British Library (BL)

To develop a methodology to model the digital lifecycle and calculate the costs of preserving digital assets over a period of years. http://www.life.ac.uk/

3 phases of work

LIFE 1 (2005-2006) – A review of existing models to produce a 6 stage digital object lifecycle model; incorporating a generic preservation model; and 3 test case studies.Web Archiving (BL); e-Journals (UCL); Voluntary deposited electronic publications (BL)

LIFE 2 (2007-2008) – 3 further case studies: Digitised newspapers (BL); SHERPA-LEAP repositories; SHERPA DP digital preservation services. Model refinements. An independent economic review. Analysis of paper vs. digital costs.

LIFE 3 (2009-2010) – Further refinements. Another case study. Storage costs survey. Development of a web-based tool based on the LIFE model spreadsheet (with HATII – University of Glasgow/DCC)

Piloting the LIFE Costs Tool in UK HEI’s - 2011

UK Higher Ed Institutional repositories were invited to take part in two strands of activity:

• Review the LIFE web tool and provide feedback via a survey

Survey Questions

• Keep an activity journal for a month to assist with evaluation of the LIFE model

An Activity Journal

HATII (DCC) – University of Glasgowhttp://www.dcc.ac.uk/projects/life

Piloting the LIFE Costs Tool in UK HEI’s - 2011 (HATII/DCC)

Pilot Participant feedback …

Split opinions about usability (3 yes 4 no)

Slow and uninformative interface

User interface layout and procedure issues

Apparent figure rounding errors

Lack of information about fields & units

‘Refine’ pages difficult to use

Alternative ways of grouping values req’d

Inability to deal with mixed content

‘Video’ content type missing

Difficult to assess accuracy

‘Basic input’ page too basic

‘Refine’ pages too detailed

The Tool and the Interface The LIFE Model

Apparent figure rounding errors

Lack of information about fields & units

Alternative ways of grouping values req’d

Piloting the LIFE Costs Tool in UK HEI’s - 2011 (HATII/DCC)

Pilot Participant feedback …

Two key aspects were particularly identified as parameters that users needed to be able to modify easily:

• Staffing

• Infrastructure and policy (specifically – storage and backup)

Also good to have …

• Costs over time as well as across the lifecycle on the output page (costs vary over the course of a project)

• More visible inflationary factors

• Some form of graphical representation on the output page

• Reporting functionality

Piloting the LIFE Costs Tool in UK HEI’s - 2011 (HATII/DCC)

Pilot Participant feedback …

Activity Journals

CONSTRAINTS

• Very small number of users – short timescale (1 month) … inadequate assessment of a highly complicated series of activities.

• Journals only covered staff effort and not capital costs

• Extensive use was made of the ‘other activity’ fields

• Participants generally didn’t add any notes about their logged activities

• Difficult to map the specified lifecycle phases onto the LIFE model

• Institutions dealing with a variety of content (rather than a homogenous collection)

• Participants not necessarily dealing with ALL repository activity

• Staff costs not entered coherently across all participants

Piloting the LIFE Costs Tool in UK HEI’s - 2011 (HATII/DCC)

Pilot Participant feedback …

Activity Journals

Journals were returned by 12 repository staff from 3 different repositories. They recorded activity data over the course of a month. Activity was mapped against an adapted version of the UKRDS Responsibilities Spreadsheet

Research Life Cycle Phase ANDS Verbs Responsibilities

Idea/Study Concept/Design Conceptualise

Write the data plan / responsibility for meeting good standards practice

Aid in experimental design and planning (and execution, contributing own insights)

Conceptualisation of data

Other Idea/ Study Concept/ Design activity

FundingAdvice on funder requirements

Other Funding activity

Research Activity: Data Gathering/Collection Create/receive

Metadata creation, its format, documentation etc.

Set internal data management policy

IPR, legal issues

Gathering data

Other Research Activity: Data Gathering/ Collection activity

8 categories in total …44 activities in total

Piloting the LIFE Costs Tool in UK HEI’s - 2011 (HATII/DCC)

Piloting the LIFE Costs Tool in UK HEI’s - 2011 (HATII/DCC)

Piloting the LIFE Costs Tool in UK HEI’s - 2011 (HATII/DCC)

The principle activity that was significant and could be mapped was …

• Metadata creation, its format, documentation, etc.- Included in the ‘Ingest’ section of the LIFE Model

The second most significant specific activity was …• Aid in experimental design and planning (and execution, contributing own

insights)

- But this couldn’t be mapped … this is more to do with the ongoing work required of a repository officer: LIFE is optimised to focus on a single bounded project

Other items on the list were also of this type

46% of activity was categorised as ‘other’ work … i.e. not specifically categorisable by the chosen schema … and subsequently not easily mapped onto any particular part of the LIFE Model.

Piloting the LIFE Costs Tool in UK HEI’s - 2011 (HATII/DCC)

Recommendations & Conclusions

The architecture of the Web Tool and its database dependency needs careful consideration

The user interface of the Web Tool needs to be de-coupled from the Spreadsheet Tool

Alternative ways of displaying outputs should be considered

More consideration needed for how users might want to modify details of the model

Make the various economic factors influencing estimates more visible

Include provision for expressing the maturity of an organisation & its existing resources

The LIFE Model will require ongoing maintenance, data input and refinement

Currently, the LIFE Model is only really applicable to a certain type of project

This type of work is VERY difficult and still represents a huge challenge for institutions and for funders

And lastly …

Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS)

Charles Beagrie Ltd. & various partners …

To extend previous work on digital preservation costs, but focus on research data. To identify long-lived datasets for the purpose of costs analysis.http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2008/keepingresearchdatasafe.aspx Various phases of work

KRDS1 (2008) – List of key cost variables and units of record. Activity model. Major cost categories. Case Studies

KRDS2 (2009) – Survey of cost information. Refined model. Benefits framework.

KRDS Dissemination (2010) – Fact sheet, user guides, summary activity model

I2S2/KRDS (2011) – Integration of the KRDS Benefits framework with the I2S2 Value Chain Analysis Model

http://www.beagrie.com/krds.php

MAIN PHASES AND ACTIVITIES OF KRDS2 ACTIVITY MODEL (“LITE”)

Pre-Archive Phase

Outreach

Initiation

Creation

Archive Phase

Acquisition

Disposal

Ingest

Archive Storage

Preservation Planning

First Mover Innovation

Data Management

Access

Support Services

Administration

Common Services

Estates

The detailed KRDS2 Activity Model is twelve pages long.

But perhaps the most significant conclusion from KRDS …

which also aligns with the LIFE Project conclusion …

Is that examining, gathering and analysing relevant cost information needs to keep on happening into the future …

The Costs Observatory Study (2011)

Scoping and Feasibility Study for an Information Management Costs ObservatoryKey Perspectives Ltd. (UK)

Value to JISCTo judge whether it is a worthwhile investment of time and money to try and create a ‘Costs Observatory’

The Costs Observatory Concept

• To provide verifiable and evidence-based guidance to UK HEI’s about the likely cost over time (the whole life-cycle cost) of managing, preserving and providing access to their digital assets

• To influence the strategic planning and policy formation within institutions and enable them to make wiser, more realistic and cost effective decisions about managing information

http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/4921/

Final Report available at:

The Costs Observatory Study (2011)

What a Costs Observatory might do …

• Collect cost information

• Be a trusted broker

• Analyse the data and produce reports and recommendations

• Support the UK HE sector

• Monitor and identify relevant economic, legislative and environmental issues

• Liaise and co-ordinate with relevant service and information providers

The Costs Observatory Study (2011)The ‘scope’ problem …

• What size and shape should this ‘Observatory’ assume …?

• What types of information should it address?

• To what extent is it being done already?

Agency Purpose

HESA Higher Education Statistics Agency (submission to HESA mandatory for UK HEI’s)

heidi Higher Education Information Database for institutions (subscription web-based service from HESA

TRIBAL Benchmarking service that collects data on costs across the institution, including all financial data across a range of categories

Educause (US) Gathers cost data over a range of IT-related operations in HEIs and makes them available through its Core Data Service

Gartner Inc. (Global) Provides a wide range of services across the business world, including gathering cost data on IT operations that HEIs use for benchmarking

UCISA Provides IT-related information in the form of periodic reports on particular issues

SCONUL Statisitics Collects data over a range of library activities on an annual basis and virtually all UK HEI libraries submit data to this service. It is light on activity-based costs

The Costs Observatory Study (2011)Why it might NOT be a good idea …

• Lack of demand (an idea ‘ahead of its time’?)• Data collection will be a sizeable and rather challenging task, requiring

considerable resourcing both by the Observatory and the participating institutions • Whether the required data can be adequately defined and whether sufficiently

accurate data can be arrived at by participants• In the specific case of research data, accurate and representative cost data may

be extremely difficult to collect within universities

perhaps the – overarching issue for the Observatory is how to handle comparability … It would need to:

• Clearly define the cost data elements needed• Ensure that these costs are pieces of informaton that all types of institution could

come up with• Ensure that the collection and submission of information was not too onerous for

institutions

The Costs Observatory Study (2011)Why it MIGHT BE a good idea …

• Stakeholders think there is a gap in existing provision

• A Costs Observatory covering research information management and preservation costs would complement existing services

• Research data management is becoming more important to institutions

• Other benchmarking services are well-used and considered useful. There is growing emphasis on evidence-based decision-making, and evidence from authoritative and trusted sources is valued

• Libraries generally enjoy a culture of information-sharing

• Research offices are generally positive about participation, as long as there is clear value in it

• The REF (in the UK) may act as a strong driver for the service, as it has for the development of repositories and CRIS in UK HEIs

• The market need not be confined to the UK and indeed there are good business reasons for considering this as a potential international service

The Costs Observatory Study (2011)

The study concluded that the scope of information that any proposed ‘Costs Observatory’ should focus on is:

• The institutional research repository and associated operations• The institutional research data repository (where present)• The institutional research information system (RIS) and associated operations• Any additional archiving operations and systems for research outputs or information

Some assertions

… “most institutions in the UK now appear to be settling on a formula that can be simply described as ‘research repository + data archives + CRIS’ “ …

… ”the repository is, in some universities at least, regarded as the third most important management information tool after the finance and student records systems” …

… “future REFs* will continue to influence record-keeping […]. A Costs Observatory thus would be a natural part of this ecology” …

*Research Excellence Framework – a periodic assessment of the quality of UK HE research that also helps to determine levels of funding for research in UK universities

The Blue Ribbon Task Force for Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access (2008 - 2010)

Objective

To develop a set of economically viable recommendations to catalyze the development of reliable strategies for the preservation of digital information.

Final report (February 2010)

http://brtf.sdsc.edu/

Big detailed report focusing on economics … some synthesis required?

A Draft Economic Sustainability Reference Model (2011)

Brian Lavoie (OCLC) and Chris Rusbridge (Consultant) came up with the idea of trying to turn the Blue Ribbon Task Force conclusions into some form of reference model.

The challenges to effective sustainability (preservation) are:

• Long time horizons• Diffused stakeholders• Misaligned or weak incentives• Lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities among stakeholders• Difficulty in valuing or monetizing the costs and benefits of digital preservation

Three principal actions are required for sustainability:

• Articulate a compelling value proposition• Provide clear incentives to preserve in the public interest• Define roles and responsibilities among stakeholders to ensure an ongoing and

efficient flow of resources to preservation throughout the digital lifecycle

DigitalAsset

Derived Demand

Property 1 Property 3

Sustainability Condition 1

Non-Rival in Consumption

Depreciable& Durable

Property 2

ValueProposition

OngoingInvestment Incentives

Sustainability Condition 2 Sustainability Condition 3

PreservationProcess

… is a stream of decisions over time

Property 4 Property 6

Sustainability Condition 4

… has finite resources… is path-dependent

Property 5

Finite Planning Horizons

Evaluate Opportunity Cost of Inaction Selection

Sustainability Condition 5 Sustainability Condition 6

Relationships

Thursday 8th December 2011

http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/idcc11/workshops

7th International Digital Curation ConferenceBristol, UK, 5 - 7 December 2011

Next opportunity to think about and develop this model ...

Opportunities for international collaboration and join-up

The LIFE Model is currently the most sustained attempt in this field to work out the long-term cost of preservation.

• who is using it and how?• how can it be improved?• if it needs ongoing input and maintenance, how should it be sustained?

The KRDS Framework has been influential and the management of research data is not a problem that is going away any time soon – for anyone!

• what is the best way of using this knowledge?

Should both of these initiatives inform a service that would specialise in the financial aspects of the long-term management of digital information in the research/teaching domain?

• might this usefully be underpinned by an economic reference model?