KRDS-I2S2 Project Plan

The project aims to test, review and promote combined use of the Keeping Research Data Safe (KRDS) Benefits Taxonomy and the I2S2 Value Chain Analysis tools for assessing the benefits of digital preservation of research data. It will extend their utility to and adoption within the JISC community by providing user review and guidance for the tools and creating an integrated Toolset. The project consortium consists of a mix of user institutions, projects, and disciplinary data services committed to the testing and exploitation of these tools and the lead partners in their original creation (Neil Beagrie of Charles Beagrie Ltd and Brian Lavoie of OCLC Research). The project will be undertaken in seven work packages that demonstrate and critique the tools, and then create and disseminate the Toolset and accompanying materials such as User Guides and Fact sheets to the wider community.

Value chain analysis has been widely used in industry and in consulting but case studies in the I2S2 project have been its first application to digital preservation or the research data lifecycle. As a method it is particularly well suited to working with a lifecycle approach to costing digital preservation and to broadly defined approaches which consider creation/pre-archive phases and support services as contributing to it. The KRDS/I2S2 Value Chain Analysis has been developed using the extended KRDS activity model. It assigns benefits (derived initially from the KRDS Benefits Taxonomy) to specific activities, and weights their impact.