DPE DRAMBORA Toolkit

The value of many of our digital assets, whether expressed in financial, scientific, scholarly, legal, cultural or simply sentimental terms cannot be underestimated. Notwithstanding their informational value, the digital form lends many exclusive advantages, such as increased accessibility, greater opportunities for performing rigorous analysis and more potential for reuse. However, digital materials also exhibit vulnerabilities on a greater scale than in the analogue world. Authenticity, integrity and understandability of digital materials are all at threat both in the contemporary, across diverse communities and systems, and over time, with few guarantees available about the way that the information landscape will exist in even a few years time.

Efforts to limit threats to digital object authenticity, integrity and understandability are constantly being developed. Digital repositories are considered by many to be one viable solution to such threats, and are being increasingly relied upon to assume stewardship responsibilities for a wide range of digital materials. Defined more broadly than in strict technological terms, these repositories encompass their 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 and utilised. However, within what remains an immature discipline, there have been few available assurances of the success or appropriateness of repositories' adopted approaches, and little evidence of any common notion of what success for digital repositories actually means. The fundamental question is often expressed in terms of trustworthiness; which of the repositories claiming to offer information preservation or curation services 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.

We have been heavily involved in a number of international efforts to conceive methods and metrics to support the audit, and ultimately certification, of digital repositories.

For more information visit www.repositoryaudit.eu. The DRAMBORA Interactive brochure is now available.