Wednesday 8 October 2008

DCC Curation Lifecycle Model

I have not written much in this blog about Digital Curation Centre products, but I think it’s time to remedy that, and mention some of them. In particular, I wanted to mention the DCC Curation Lifecycle model, which is attracting widespread interest. Primarily put together by Sarah Higgins with input from colleagues across the DCC and external experts, like all such models it is of course a compromise between succinctness and completeness. Sarah has run a couple of workshops on it, including one in the US at JCDL 08 in Pittsburgh, and the response was extremely positive.

I hope to mention later how we will be using it to structure information on standards, and we are expecting to use it as an entry point to the DCC web site and the DCC DIFFUSE Standards Frameworks Project. In addition, I learned only recently that the more detailed proposals for the UK Research Data Service (which went to their Steering Committee a week or so back) lean heavily on the model (not apparent from their interim report). It is also used to explain the roles of data managers and data scientists in the JISC report “Skills, Role & Career Structure of Data Scientists & Curators: Assessment of Current Practice & Future Needs” by Alma Swan and Sheridan Brown.

Here is the graphic summary of the model:



I won’t attempt here to explain it in detail, as there’s sufficient additional information on the DCC web site and the longer IJDC article about the model.

1 comment:

  1. hi Chris

    the DCC lifecycle was indeed a valuable input to the second stage of the UK Research Data Service (UKRDS) study.

    The study is/will be in three parts (as required by HEFCE for its shared services programme).

    The first part is the feasibility study - a high-level view inter-alia of research funder data policies, national and institutional provision in the UK and the position in comparator countries internationally;

    the second part is a business plan to take a detailed look at processes, costings, governance and implementation;

    the third is a final report to HEFCE - effectively a summary report referencing the final versions of the feasibility study and the business plan.

    The DCC Curation Lifecycle Model applies to processes - hence it is coming into use in the second stage of the study not the first (which was the focus of the interim UKRDS report released in July).

    Also of interest to the second phase of the UKRDS study are data management plans which DCC is also beginning to work on so its good to see the potential levels of synergies/benefits between the two.

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