Determining costs of archiving data in IRs

A new report from JISC investigates the medium to long term costs to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of the preservation of research data and developed guidance for HEFCE and institutions on these issues.

The report, 'Keeping Research Data Safe', provides an essential methodological foundation on research data costs and will assist HEIs and funding bodies wishing to establish strategies and TRAC costings for longterm data management and archiving. The study provides a framework and guidance for determining costs consisting of:

• A list of key cost variables and potential units of record;
• An activity model divided into pre-archive, archive, and support services;
• A resources template including major cost categories in TRAC, divided into the major phases from the activity model and by duration of activity.

The report focus is on research data, though it is likely that some aspects of the guidance will also be relevant to repositories containing other materials. If you read the report and have any ideas about this, please do post them here!