Improving Operations Using Standards and Metrics: Self-Assessment of Long-Term Preservation Practices at FSD

Preserving digital data is a challenge. For the outcome to be successful, many organisational and practical issues need to be in place. The Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD, http://www.fsd.uta.fi/) is dedicated to support the life cycle of digital research data in social sciences. It is therefore critical that FSD's operations and procedures are up-to-date and consistent with relevant standards and best practices. The key standard for long term preservation of digital data is the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model (ISO14721:2003). This presentation will explore FSD's conformance to OAIS and describe how FSD's functions map to the seven OAIS functions (ingest, archival storage, data management, administration, preservation planning, access and common services), with special attention to ingest and access. We will also discuss the process and results of a self-assessment that was conducted analysing FSD policies, plans and procedures within the framework of the Audit and Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories (TDR) Checklist (CCSDS 652.0-M-1). We will summarise the weaknesses, risks and strengths identified, discuss the use of the TDR metrics and analyse how adopting standards and best practices could facilitate co-operation and collaborative partnerships.