Superb Stewardship of Digital Assets – Developing a strategy for
Digital Archiving and Preservation at the University of Notre
Dame
H. Hockx-Yu
Office of Information Technologies,
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
USA
hyu3@nd.edu

ABSTRACTThis paper describes the effort to develop an institutional strategy
for digital assets management for the University of Notre Dame,
where information is currently managed within a devolved
organisational structure, and archiving and preservation are often
overlooked. It advocates a lifecycle approach of digital assets
management and recommends a strategy with the goal to embed
considerations for archiving and preservation in policies,
workflows and technologies across the entire organisation.

CCS CONCEPTS• Applied computing → Education → Digital libraries andarchives

KEYWORDS
Digital Archiving, Digital Preservation, Digital Assets
Management, Strategy Development, Institutional Challenges

1

INTRODUCTION

Just a few years ago, many of the materials universities used forteaching, learning, research and communications existed inphysical formats. More and more of this analogue world now
presents only as digital artefacts. Much of the learning, teaching
and research at today’s universities is done digitally. Digitalrecords and data are now ubiquitous and their proper management
and preservation is critical for academic institutions to achieve
their overall aspirations.
The University of Notre Dame (UND) is a private research
university located adjacent to South Bend, Indiana, United States.
It was founded 1842 by Father Edward Sorin, a priest of theCongregation of Holy Cross. UND is ranked #15 among National
Universities in 2017 [19] and #12 of the top research universities
in 2016 [2]. Catholicism and Catholic intellectual tradition
continue to serve as the underlying foundation for the University’s
aspirations as a community of scholars and administrators. It isalso the University’s point of greatest distinction from many otherresearch institutions [15].

UND’s leadership consists of Fellows, Board of trustees, Deans ofcolleges and schools and the President’s Leadership Council. As
with many higher education institutions, while there is a central
process of allocating funds, devolved managerial responsibilities
and budgeting are essential elements of the management model.
Authority and accountability are with business units, including theautonomy of spending budgets, regardless of the sources: whether
it is centrally allocated funds, return on endowment or grants. The
organisation and structure of e.g. IT services in this context consistof a hybrid of practices. While the Office of Information
Technologies (OIT) has the responsibility of supporting enterprisewide computing on campus, it merely serves as a technology
partner or a service provider. Business units are fully autonomousin deciding whether to use OIT provided services or solutions.
Some business units for this reason have their own IT team toensure support that is more sensitive to local knowledge or
requirements. IT infrastructure services, however, is an area wherehigh rate of adoption can be observed and is increasing. There is in
general a good collaborative relationship between the OIT andlocal IT departments.
As digital information profoundly changes learning, teaching andresearch, it also brings about many challenges, ranging fromdiscovery among a vast amount of information, diversity offormats, and rights management to analytics. The biggest challenge
is however organisational, how the University as an organisation inits entirety ensure consistency or achieve economy of scale, being
aware that devolution tends to encourage duplication or creating
silos.
Since 2009 various initiatives have already taken place at UND tocoordinate efforts and address the challenges of digital assets
management. They were of different scale and involved different
academic and administrative units. A taskforce or project basedmodel has been commonly used to support these efforts, where
executive-level committees were formed to oversee the initiatives,
who tasked working groups with participants across campus units
to document and prioritise requirements and makerecommendations. These initiatives have put in place pieces ofinfrastructure and some processes needed for digital assets

August 2017, Hockx-Yu
management and placed NUD in a good position to revisit the
topic and address the gaps.
Between October 2016 and March 2017, the author undertook a
consultation exercise involving a wide range of stakeholders across
campus, including interviews and meetings with over 80
individuals from over 20 departments. The ultimate goal was todevelop a campus-wide strategy to guide the preservation, accessand dissemination of NUD’s digital assets. The findings andrecommendations are reported in this paper.

2

from creation to archiving that otherwise might be overlooked.
There are different ways of defining the stages of digital assets,
dependent on institutional practices and the level of detail. The
model outlined in Figure 1 is a generic and broad one, omittingmuch detail yet applicable to all categories of digital assets created
and acquired by UND. The key is to apply this way of thinking
systematically and to make sure that strategies and policies are
consistent, and the crucial stage of “Archiving and Preservation” is
not routinely overlooked.

DEFINTIONSIn the context of NUD, the term “digital assets management” isoften used to refer to the activities related to managing digital
information. The use of the word “assets” implies an underlying
process of making value judgement. Regardless of the formats,digital assets are records, data and resources, typically owned by
the University, regarded as having value and therefore needing to
be retained and/or preserved. The implied valuation raises
questions with regard to the identification and appraisal of digital
information, as well as roles and responsibilities: how does theprocess of attaching value work and whose responsibility is it?
Three broad, not necessarily mutually exclusive categories havebeen identified to scope the digital assets landscape at UND:
University Records
The Records Management and Archives Policy [18] defines
University Records as “recorded information created or received in
the course of conducting University business and kept as evidenceof such activity. This definition extends to records in all formats,including but not limited to e-mail, electronic and paper
documents, film and print graphics, and audio and video
recordings.
Research Data
The Data Retention and Access Policy [9] defines Research Data
as “information recorded or customarily recorded in the relevant
field, as a result of research. Data include notes, records, slides,
photographs, drawings, information stored in electronic and/or
computer readable form, reports, publications, correspondence, andsummaries, compilations, or derivatives of other data.
Resources for teaching, learning and researchThis category of digital assets refers to the wide range of content
the University collects, creates, receives as donation, or purchases
to support teaching, teaching and research. Examples include the
Library collections, donated datasets, electronic databases,
electronic journals, also lecture captures and Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOCs).
The lifecycle model [1] is a commonly accepted framework for
managing digital information and data, which recognises thechange of value and frequency of use over time. It also allows theidentification of different stages in the lifespan of digital assets

Figure 1: Digital Assets Lifecycle
For the purpose of the work described in is paper and based on
UND’s specific circumstances, the terms “digital archiving” and“digital preservation” are defined as follows:
Digital archiving
The process of acquiring and appraising records and data for longterm retention. It also includes all the activities related to providing
access to archived data and records.
Digital Preservation
The series of managed activities that ensures ongoing access todigital material, with a focus on guarding against deterioration andtechnological obsolescence over time.

2

METHODOLGY

The consultation was conducted by the author, in her role as
Program Manager for Digital Product Access and Dissemination,
reporting to the UND Vice President for Information Technologies& Chief Information and Digital Officer. The author’s post is
jointly supported by the Office of Information Technologies andthe Hesburgh Libraries.
The goal of the consultation was to gain understanding of thecurrent state of digital assets management across campus, and to
identify the gaps. The findings will inform the development of acampus-wide strategy and a program of work for its
implementation.
Over 80 individuals were consulted across campus, mostly throughface-to-face meetings and interviews. The interviews were semi-August 2017, Hockx-Yu
structured, using predefined as well as open questions. The focus
was on obtaining an overview of the current practice andunderstanding what happens to digital assets throughout the
lifecycle: what digital content are created, how they are managed,
used, archived and preserved.
A small group of individual researchers, who do not necessarily
represent a college or department, were also consulted. Theirrequirements
includeend-of-projectdata
management,
preservation of personal research material and support forcollaborative research. One of these is an anthropologist, whose
personal research “archive” spanning over 25 years contains
analogue and born-digital material of various formats including
human subject data.
When use cases were identified for collaboration, or referral of(otherwise unknown) services, efforts have also been made tobring people together across business units and functional teams.
This provided an opportunity to think about future workflows andprocesses based on real-world problems and already led to bettercollaboration, potential grants and improved processes and accessto some digital assets. Selected use cases are described in Section
4.
The main goal of consultation exercise was to obtain a broad
picture of digital asset management at UND and therefore had aninternal focus. Benchmarking was an element of the project andserved as point of reference, rather than motivation for change. It
was mainly based on comparison with similar research institution
in the US and in the Midwest, including Stanford University, Yale
University, Princeton University, University of Michigan andIndianan University. The National Digital Stewardship Alliance’s
digital preservation levels were also used to assess UND’s
compliance [8]. This pointed to e.g. the lack of dedicated positions
related to digital preservation, and some NDSA level one dataprotection issues.
Research reported in this paper is based on data collected from alarge number of individuals. Caution has been applied to makesure research ethics have been taken into account and theappropriate protocols are being followed. A formal compliancereview submission was made to UND’s Research Compliance, andthe Institutional Review Board (IRB) determined that the project
qualities as exempt human subjects research, as its nature does notmeet the regulatory definition.

3

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONSIn this section, findings and recommendations that emerged fromthe consultation exercise are reported. The findings describe thecurrent digital assets management landscape at UND. The
recommendations directly respond to the findings and suggest
specific interventions or strategies to address the identified gaps
and challenges.

3.1 Findings

While previous digital assets management initiatives havedelivered solutions or capability, these tended to meet specificrequirements and did not necessarily achieve maximum adoption at
the institutional level. Many recommendations were not followed
through or resources for implementation were not in place. The
executive committees and taskforces were charged with
understanding requirements and making recommendations, but notwith the overall implementation or change management, leading tostart-stops over time.
Finding 1:
Previous digital assets management initiatives did not makeenough impact at the institutional level, leaving many valid
recommendations unimplemented.
While there are excellent examples of active collaboration between
groups on campus, a common feedback on the current practices ofdigital assets management points towards a “siloed” approach,referring to uncoordinated and different ways of doing things inoverlapping areas. Individual business units continue to create andmanage their own digital assets. This has obvious disadvantages:
•
•
•

•
•

Digital assets are stored at different locations, lacking an
overview at the University level
Difficulty to discover knowledge of and to locate digitalcontent, resulting in poor reusability
Duplication of effort, leading to the proliferation of a large
number of applications, which are costly to support anddifficult for users to choose from
Negative effects on collaboration
Difficulty to develop common standards and encourage bestpractice.

Administrative hurdles were also cited. Some stakeholders are of
the view that the tendency toward intramural charges and cost
recovery fees to internal users erects economic barriers and(inadvertently) encourages silos. This has also been attributed tothe uneven level of use of technology across the organisation.
While some departments engage with the most advanced
technology, others still operate in IT environments typical of the
1990s.
Finding 2:
Charging models for services are inconsistent across campus, andcan form barriers for consistent lifecycle management of digitalassets.
Finding 3:
Intended enterprise solutions are often unknown, not considered or
not affordable to SOME departments.
Lifecycle management of digital assets, especially archiving andpreservation arrangements, needs to be embedded across theorganisation, reflected in institutional policies, information anddata governance, IT services management and day to day businessprocesses and workflows. It needs to be taken into account fromAugust 2017, Hockx-Yu
the point of creation and considered especially when entering into
contracts with 3rd party suppliers. This is currently not the case.
Archiving and preservation are routinely overlooked.
Finding 4:
There is generally a strong focus on “now”. Risk of digital assets
being lost is not well understood, nor what is required to ensure
their continued access.
The amount of digital content we create far exceeds the amount weare able to keep and preserve. Archiving is as much about keeping
as it is about discarding things. Common questions being asked inthis context are what do we keep and who should decide on this?
There are a number of university-level policies which define
retention periods for records and research data, and go a long way
in help answer these questions:
Table 1: University Policies relevant to Records and Data
Retention
Policy Name

Responsible
Department

Designated Custodian

Data Retention
and Access [9]Research
Administration

Faculty member incharge of theresearch

Review
Date

Non-faculty
principal
investigator orother person
designated by therelevant
department chairor centre director
or
Department chairor centre director
Office of the
ProvostRetention of
Grant orContract
Financial
Records[20]Research &Sponsored
Programs
Accounting

October
2015
For electronictransactions: thecentral administrative
office responsible formaintaining theelectronic application
For paper documents:
the office receiving theoriginal document

University
Archives

University Archives(in collaboration with
the Office of GeneralCounsel andUniversity
administrative offices)

2015

General
Records
Retention
Schedules[16]

Finding 5:
There is a lack of general awareness of the University’s data andrecords retention policies. And it is not evident how these are
implemented for assets in digital formats.
Some departments are not fully aware of the role and expertise of
the Hesburgh Libraries and University Archives. Curatorial
decisions are made without consulting them; records are created orcollected and kept locally (despite having become inactive)
without depositing to the Archives for extended period of time.
Some of these records are stored on obsolete media or in obsolete
formats, which are at risk of being lost without immediate
preservation actions.
Finding 6:
University Archives’ responsibility for collecting, maintaining andpreserving the official records of the University is not wellunderstood. It is not commonly accepted that this responsibility
extends to include digital records.

orIntellectual
Property Policy[13]

The Records
Management
andArchives Policy[18]

August2012

Although digital archiving and preservation are not alien concepts,
there is a lack of technical skills and practical experience at theinstitutional level. Without detailed retention schedules andidentification of systems of records, archiving requirements are
rarely implemented in the many systems and applications that areused to handle digital documents, records and data. Basic bit-level
preservation actions including periodical fixity checks are notexplicitly or systematically carried out. Digital files are often
deposited or transferred using physical media, without essential
metadata or checksum-based verification. The Hesburgh Libraries
and University Archives, who have the long-standing mission ofpreserving knowledge and institutional memory, are still in theprocess of analogue to digital transition. They are working towards
active preservation of collection items and systematic collection of
institutional records in digital formats, both requiring time,
investments and development of relevant skills.
Finding 7:
Some digital assets have already been lost. Some are currently
stored on obsolete media or in obsolete formats, not accessible andat risk of being lost, without (immediate) remedy actions.

August 2017, Hockx-Yu
Finding 8:
Born-digital University records are a key area of challenge for the
University Archives. An up-to-date, function-based retention
schedule (as opposed to office-based), and identification ofsystem(s) of records will allow wider application and support
automation. However, without the skills, resources and tools
required to acquire, appraise, preserve and provide access to theserecords, it is very challenging for University Archives to fulfil theirrole.

degree of reluctance has also been observed. This could be due to anumber of reasons:Research data takes many forms. Archiving and preservation ofresearch data, because it covers a wide range of disciplines withdiverse data management, sharing and curation practices, is acomplex area where there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Many
universities approach the challenges by setting policies, putting inplace storage and data repositories and by providing support andguidance for data management - an important element is to meet
public access requirements for federally funded research. The
ultimate goal is to support the key principle underpinning thescientific discourse: the ability to verify results and claims
independently, which is being seriously jeopardised by thedisappearance of referenced data in research articles as well as thereliance on computer hardware, software and configurations andsource code.

Finding 9:
The association between research data and administrative records
are not maintained. The dual role of CurateND as the institutional
repository and Hesburgh Libraries’ digital library system isintended to optimise use of the technology. However, it does attimes create competition in terms of resource as well as priority.

Notre Dame Research, various computing and data centres, as wellas the Hesburgh Libraries already offer a wide range of services
and support to researchers. A good example is how grants andawards are managed, where the University’s system of record forresearch administration, Cayuse, plays an important role. We
however need to question if individual researchers can be expected
to preserve research data reliably in the long term. If yes, what else
needs to be put in place to support them fulfil this role.
CurateND is UND’s digital repository committed to providing
permanent access to and long term preservation of the University’s
Research and Scholarship, including published work and researchdata. It also serves as the Hesburgh Libraries’ digital librarysystem. CurateND is a relatively new service, only launched in2015, and the team has so far focused on the technicaldevelopment, based on identified use cases. CurateND is not solely
an open access repository. It contains open access, embargoed, andprivate content. The positioning of CurateND is to become thesystem of records for the University’s scholarly outputs, regardlesswhere the data resides.
CurateND has a set of policies defining various aspects of therepository, including a Review and Retention Policy [4]. The
policy commits to retaining certain types of material in perpetuity
and defines the retention periods and review criteria for theremainder of the content.
It is still early days, the deposit experience with researchers
however seems somewhat mixed. While many researchers
understand the potential risks of information and data loss, a

•
•
•
•
•
•

Different disciplinary practices in data sharing
Lack of trust in ceding control of data
Unclear about ownership and rights
CurateND does not meet specific requirements
Depositing research data seen as “one more thing to do”
Lack of awareness of the existence or purpose of CurateND.

Storage and backup services are crucial to protecting digital assets.
A number of enterprise storage options are offered by the OIT,
serving different purposes. Some are unlimited and funded
centrally; some come with a base entitlement and charge a fee for
additional space. Many departments also use locally sourced
storage solutions, e.g. RAID, SAN, cloud storage, due to accessrequirements or budget restrictions. Key observations and feedback
specific to storage include:
•

•
•

•
•
•

Data is often inconveniently spread across different storage
locations, without the confidence or confirmation of proper
back-up.
Different storage solutions are not well understood; somedepartments experience shortage of storage capacity.
Alternative storage solutions, e.g. network-attached storage(NAS) devices and external disks, are commonly used, notjust as short relief. These do not scale cost-effectively, are
not intended for long-term use and can lead to data loss.
The longevity of some storage solutions (e.g. Google Drive)
are unclear.
Individual researchers’ desktops are not consistently
backed-up.
Some block-level storage solution, e.g. the LTO Tape
Archival Storage, is not widely known on campus.

Finding 10:
Despite the existence of enterprise storage solutions, much data
still seems to be stored on (scattered) direct-attached storage, or
locally managed NAS devices, creating data islands and poor dataprotection.

3.2 Recommendations
The recommendations are summarised in this section, grouped into
a number of areas.
The longevity of our digital assets is a campus-wide challenge.
While business units can take actions on their own there is a strong

August 2017, Hockx-Yu
consensus that coordinated strategies and shared resources are
preferred over siloed local efforts.

campus-wide remit to coordinate policies, procedures, practices,
resources and technologies related to digital assets management.

Two particular frameworks are recommended to guide andbenchmark UND’s digital archiving and preservation efforts:•“Levels of Digital Preservation”, developed by the
National Digital Stewardship Alliance [8].
•“Research Data Storage: A Framework for Success”,
developed by the EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis andResearch [5].

Digital resources are far from being unmanaged at UND. A diverse
array of people, technology and processes are in place, forming theenvironment in which digital resources are created, stored, secured
and used. What we do not have is a culture or the practice of
thinking beyond now, i.e. what happens to digital resources beyond
the stage of active use? What must we do now to ensure we canfind and interpret our digital records and research data in the
future? These questions cannot be ignored until digital resources
are passed into the custody of the Libraries and Archives, nor does
the responsibility of digital preservation reside solely with them,
only at the very end of digital assets’ lifecycle.

3.2.1 Strategy, Policy and Organisation
UND has an excellent track record in managing paper records andphysical assets such as buildings. As more and more assets exist indigital formats, we must apply the same rigor demonstrated inplanning and management and take the same coordinated approachto managing our digital assets, starting with a recognition of theirvalue and their stewardship as a strategic priority. One of the
University’s strategic goals is to “foster the University’s mission
through superb stewardship of its human, physical, and financial
resources” [12]. It is pertinent to also include the vast amount ofdigital resources we create, procure and are given, that underpin
our academic and administrative activities, and aim to provide a
track record of equally excellent stewardship for this new class of
University assets.
Recommendation 1:
Amend the 4th goal in the University’s Strategic Plan to include“digital resources” as an additional area where superb
stewardship is required, so that it reads: foster the University’s
mission through superb stewardship of its human, physical,
financial and digital resources.
Recommendation 2:
Develop a business model so that the required resources are inplace to prioritise and implement the recommendations made inthis report.
Stewardship of digital assets is not a one-off event but an ongoingprocess, operating in tandem with the full range of services
supporting digital information environment and the overarching
financial and organisational infrastructure. Project or taskforcebased efforts are time-bound, focus on specific outcomes, so may
not be appropriate for core activities such as digital stewardship,
which requires processes proceeding continually over time. This
does not mean that we should not ever run projects and task-forces
to solve specific problems. The key is to emphasise programmatic
progress so that outcomes delivered by projects and taskforces aresynthesised, followed up and embedded in business processes
through change management.
Recommendation 3:
Move from project and taskforce-driven activities to a fundamental
programme of core activities by establishing a permanentorganisational fixture (e.g. a person, an office or a team) with

Recommendation 4:
Carry out campus-wide effort to identify the process and control
points where digital archiving and preservation considerations canbe routinely embedded, e.g.
•
Campus-level information committees and governancebodies•Service units creating digital resources and departments
commissioning the work•
Procurement including 3rd party data / information
creation and hosting•
IT service management framework•
Business and project planning
3.2.2 Library and Archives
Among the three categories of digital assets defined in section 2,
resources for teaching, learning and research is a category forwhich the University Library and Archives have shared
responsibility of long-term custodianship. Some archival records
have research values and can be used as education resources, andvice versa. As technologies advance and new types of resources
are created and added to the category, it is important that the
Library and Archives keep abreast of new developments andclearly define roles and responsibilities, to avoid grey area and toensure none of the assets fall between the cracks.
Discovery has been made of digital assets stored on obsolete media
or in obsolete format (see examples in 4.1 and 4.2). Some of thelegacy assets are collection items held by the Libraries andArchives, some belong to researchers’ personal archives ofresearch data. They are no longer easily accessible and are at riskof being lost without immediate remedy action. There are also
analogue materials stored on physical media which need to bedigitised to avoid media deterioration.
Digitisation and format migration routinely take place at the
Libraries and Archives. In addition, a number of academic andteaching support units also have old equipment and offer faculty
and students a similar service (which are not extensively used andthe usage is declining). It makes sense to consolidate these as a
campus-level service.

August 2017, Hockx-Yu

Legacy content is not the sole challenge. As an institution we alsoneed to build the capability and expertise to preserve current andadvanced digital resources. Novel classes of born-digital data,
information and knowledge are being created, each with its own
underlying artefacts needing to be preserved. Complex digital
objects such as augmented reality, mobile apps and gigapixel
images are increasingly used to support teaching, learning andresearch. We collectively do not yet know the best methods forarchiving and preserving them. We need to take actions to address
the challenges, together with peer institutions and the digitalpreservation community. We need to invest in a permanent teamwithin the organisation who can build the know-how and technicalexpertise for hands-on and ongoing digital preservation activities.
Recommendation 5:
Establish a digitisation and digital preservation centre, based at
Hesburgh Libraries, to serve campus-wide needs. The centre will
digitise, preserve, research, and develop solutions for preserving
advanced digital resources. It will also educate and advise, byrecommending and helping to implement common standards andencouraging best practice.
Some institutional records reside in systems and locations external
to the University, e.g. on the web and social network platforms,
without our active control. This type of records is also ephemeralin nature and can easily disappear - the commonly cited average
lifespan of web pages is about one hundred days. Collecting or
archiving these records has therefore become a routine activity formany organisations including over 250+ academic institutions in
the US, including all the Ivy League schools. Currently UND’s
web and social presence are not systematically archived.
Recommendation 6:
Hesburgh Libraries and University Archives need to make an
informed decision on whether to archive the University’s web andsocial network presence as institutional records. Also consider the
potential of web archiving in helping to build digital collections inareas where we have strong existing physical collections or
research interest, e.g. Catholicism, Irish studies.
Born-digital records are the most challenging issue for University
Archives. There is a recognition that the records management
function in the Archives needs to prioritise and focus accelerated
attention on electronic records to ensure the University’s history,
its legal and administrative records are documented appropriately.
Efforts are already underway to develop function-based retention
schedules and to put in place dedicated electronic records
management resources.
Recommendation 7:
Build the capability for and more rapidly transition to electronic
records management. Archives should work closely with thetechnological partners on campus to identify systems of records
and find ways to implement the appropriate retention schedule inthese systems. As a minimum, disaster recovery plans must be inplace for vital records.
3.2.3

Research Data

Archiving and preserving research data is a complex challenge
which require collaboration between many campus units and withindividual researchers. To progress in this area, the best strategy is
to build on the work already done internally by Notre Dame
Research, various computing and data centres, Hesburgh Libraries
as well as academic departments, and externally by various
research and disciplinary communities. A two-pronged approach isrecommended: at the institutional level, meeting public accessrequirements of sponsored research is no-doubt a priority. Fromindividual researcher’s perspective, an immediate task would be to
discover and “rescue” research outputs which have become
inaccessible due to technology obsolescence – this should one of
the services offered by the digitisation and digital preservation
centre mentioned in Recommendation 5.
Recommendation 8:
Review, update and coordinate the research data retention policies
including explicit treatment beyond the stipulated retention
periods. Make sure the designated custodians are aware of and aresupported in fulfilling their roles. If not already in place, develop
the necessary procedures to implement these policies.
Recommendation 9:
Consider measures that can help ring-fence the two distinct
purposes of CurateND, as UND’s institutional repository andHesburgh Libraries’ digital library system, to ensure that
requirements for both are met. These could be financial,organisational or branding-related (e.g., dedicate more resources
to each pipeline of content).
Recommendation 10:
Maintain central records of research outputs (publication anddata) arising from (at the very least) sponsored research,regardless of whether these are uploaded to CurateND,
disciplinary repositories or other repositories required by funders,
and link these with the corresponding administrative records heldin the Cayuse system.
3.2.4

Storage and Cloud Services

Sitting low in the technology stack, storage and backup are thefoundation and most important enablers for any archiving andpreservation endeavour. Arguably a centralised approach has a lotof advantages. This, for example, will allow identification /inventorisation of digital assets and enable bit-level preservation
actions. The findings around storage however points to the needfor basic steps to ensure data protection, e.g. by reducing the use of
direct-attached devices as a long term storage solution, andensuring data is backed-up appropriately. We also need tocommunicate effectively about the purpose and cost structure ofAugust 2017, Hockx-Yu
enterprise storage solutions. If departments cannot use enterprisesolutions, either because of performance or funding issues, analternative approach, instead of driving people to implementing
local solutions, is to work with departments and find ways to offer
a service that DOES meet their requirements.
Just as many other higher education institutions, Notre Dame has
widely adopted the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) approaches to
Cloud computing and are transitioning significant portions of ourinfrastructure to the Cloud [10]. This Cloud First effort is guided
by a lifecycle framework, which includes an “end of life” stage ofa solution or a service [11]. Explicit treatment of data, whenretiring a service or a solution, however will need to be added anddefined, based on the appropriate retention schedule, to make suredata ends up in the right places at the end of the lifecycle.
80% of UND’ IT services are expected to move into the Cloud by
the end of 2017. We are aware of the risks associated with cloudcomputing such as information security and regulatory compliance.
Moving data to the cloud however also has implications on its
longevity and there are a number of specific aspects we need toconsider:Data integrity
How do we manage the integrity of stored content over theduration of the service, which encompasses not only protecting
data from unauthorised alteration, but also from bit rot. How can
we ensure data is safeguarded in the event of disasters, supplierfailure, or a decision to change service provider? In addition, what
happens to the data when a service is retired, or if a supplier goesout of business, and in the event of a contractual dispute or
termination?
Archiving and preservation
It will take some thought to work out how to archive and preserve(inactive) data sitting in the Cloud, and how these processes
integrate with the many applications holding and processing thedata in its current lifecycle. The challenges are in fact parallel todoing this on campus. The location of data does not change thenature of archiving and preservation activities. Many vendors
already offer cloud services for archiving and preservation, withthe ability to integrate with key cloud storage platforms.
Recommendation 11:
Review storage service strategy in light of the findings. Make plans
and take actions to address the identified issues. An immediategoal should be reducing the use of direct-attached devices as along term storage solution, and ensuring data is backed-up
appropriately.
Recommendation 12:
Identify long-term preservation risks related to Cloud services andput in place measures to mitigate the risks (e.g. throughcontractual agreements). Explicitly define treatment of data, basedon the appropriate retention schedule, such as when retiring aservice in the Cloud.

4 USE CASES
The section offers description of a number of selected use cases,
which came to the author’s attention during the consultation
exercise. These real world examples support the findings andrecommendations described in Section 3. They also illustrate theongoing nature and urgency of digital archiving and preservation.

4.1 Recordings at risk
An internal report delivered in 2010 by one of the previous digitalassets management taskforces mentioned an archive of historicallysignificant sound recordings held by WSND, the FM radio stationthat is part of UND’s Student Media Group. These recordings areon open reel tapes and stored in an office environment. They
include interviews with prominent campus figures such as Father
Hesburgh and speeches given on campus by Robert Kennedy and anumber of presidents. A recent inventory-check also revealed
recordings belonging to the Notre Dame Sophomore Literary
Festival (SLF), a student-organised event that invited the top
names in literature to give readings, deliver lectures, and engage inpanel discussions on campus, particularly in the event’s early years
in the 1960s and ’70s. Twenty-five poets, fiction writers,
dramatists, and critics came to Notre Dame to participate in the
SLF. Prominent among the participants were Allen Ginsberg,
Robert Duncan, Jerzy Kosiński, Tom Stoppard, Ishmael Reed,
John Barth, Diane Wakoski, and William Gass.
Approximately 45 hours of SLF readings and lectures on sixtyeight open reel ¼” tapes from 1968, 1971, 1972, and 1979,
currently housed at two separate locations, partially by WSND andpartially by University Archives, were selected and brought
together, which formed the basis of UND’s grant application for
the Council on Library and Information Resources’ (CLIR)
Recordings at Risk Program [3]. As a result of the project, thetapes housed at WSND will be transferred to the University
Archives for optimised storage and better access, and added to theArchives’ online finding aid.

4.2 1966-1967 Sisters Survey
Sister Marie Augusta Neal was professor of sociology at
Emmanuel College in Boston, Massachusetts between 1953-1991.
She became the Director of the Research Committee of theConference of Major Superiors of Women’s Institute (CMSW)
which conducted the CMSW Sisters' Survey of 1966-1967, a
population attitude survey designed to assess American sisters’
readiness for renewal. With 649 variables and responses from over
130,000 Catholic sisters, it is believed to be “the largest, single,
data gathering event ever performed with regard to womenreligious” [7]. All materials related to the CMSW Sisters’ Survey
and Sr Neal’s follow-up studies were donated to UND Archives
between 1991 and 1996, including computer data tapes [17].

August 2017, Hockx-Yu
The Sisters Survey data was initially assembled, processed andstored on IBM EBCDIC format tapes and converted to newer
formats in 1996, before being deposited to the UND Archives.
Under the custodianship of UND, the survey data was transferred
to CDs then to computer hard disk in 1999. The Survey data has
fortunately survived the format migrations but has not been used
for 18 years since 1996.

regularly deposit files to the Archives no longer need to copy files
to physical media, and instead place the files in the department’s
folder on S3. The Archives will move and process the files, andstore them eventually in the Spectra T950 Tape Library, UND’s
enterprise archival storage service. Archives can also use the same
folder to deliver back any archival files requested by thedepartments for re-use.

The data came to the author recently without any file extension.
Running the file through DROID [21], a file profiling tool
developed by the UK national Archive did not deliver any useful
information. Knowing that we are looking at cross-tabular data,
and the possible involvement of statistical software, a few obvious
extensions were added. The files could be opened with Excel but
contained endless lines of numbers without much meaning so thefirst challenge is knowing how to truncate the data.

Additional workflows being developed and hinge on this new
workflow include file naming conventions, formats and metadata
requirements, and checksum base file transfer verification.

The truncation problem was later resolved by UND’s Economics
Librarian, who has a good understanding of survey data – “I justsaw the pattern”, he explained.
Things followed smoothly from this point onwards. The dataset
has now been reformatted and stored in .dta and .csv formats. The“codebook” was also recreated – our librarian wrote scripts andextracted all the questions and pre-defined responses from PDFs
and pulled them together in one document. The dataset is in thebest possible format for re-use. We are just dotting the i’s andcrossing the t’s, before releasing it publicly.
A key takeaway of the above use case is that just keeping the bits
safe is not simply not enough. Active use is the best way formonitoring and detecting digital obsolescence. Materials createdby obsolete technology require ongoing care and necessaryintervention such as media and format migration. Furthermore,
without metadata, in this case the notes, finding aid and scanned
codebook, it would be very difficult to interpret or make sense of
the Sisters Survey dataset.

4.3 Deposit workflow for University Archives
It came to the author’s attention that the current workflow for
depositing or transferring digital files to University Archives relies
heavily on the use of physical or portable media such as DVDs,
external hard disks and flash drives. An example of this is how
UND’s Debartlo Performing Arts Center (DPAC) deposit
recordings of concerts and performances. Recordings are initiallystored on DPAC’s network drive. Once a year these are burnt toDVDs, to make space for new recordings and for deposit to the
University Archives. The workflow was set up at a time when
network bandwidth was inadequate for transferring large audio
files.
A small project took place to improve the workflow and takeadvantage of current network capacity. The Storage Services teamin the OIT has now set up a dedicated S3 bucket to allow
individual departments to drop files for the Archives. Those

5 COUNCLUSIONS AND NEXT STEPS
Digital Archiving and preservation are important aspects of digitalassets management and are yet to be systematically approached at
UND. Work reported in this papers constitute steps towards
achieving superb stewardship of the University’s assets which now
include digital assets.
UND is currently undertaking the Campus Crossroads Project, thelargest building initiative in the history of the University [14]. The$400 million project is aimed at maximising the potential of one of
the most recognizable and centrally located buildings on campus:
Notre Dame Stadium. The project includes a digital media centre
with a 2,000-square-foot studio, bringing together currently
dispersed media production work across campus. This is an
opportunity to develop a common solution for managing video
assets, including digital archiving and preservation requirements –a separate project is already underway, involving departments
across campus who produce, use and provide custodianship overvideos.
Stakeholders who participated in the consultation exercise wereinvited back to a follow-up workshop in April 2017, wherefindings and recommendations described in the paper werereported. Facilitated discussions also took place with the goal toarrive at a prioritised list of recommendations, and to identify the
key barriers associated with their implementation. The results,
based on the MosCoW and Kano [6] data collected via a preworkshop survey and group discussions during the workshop,
pointed to recommendations 1, 2, 5, and 7 as highest priorities,
followed by recommendation 11 and 12.

Figure 2: Prioritisation of Recommendations

August 2017, Hockx-Yu

A further process of prioritisation and business planning process
will follow, to design a programme of work to implement therecommendations, which will be constructed upon the three pillarsof policy, process and technology. Digital archiving andpreservation are central elements of our forward strategy, as they
can help us effectively retain, manage and leverage our digitalassets.

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https://www.collegeraptor.com/college-rankings/best-research-universities[3] Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). 2017. Recordings at Risk.
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