This post was adapted from an article written by John Lynch, with contributions from Lisa Snyder, Annelie Rugg, Deidre Whitmore, Lucian Tucker, Todd Presner, Miriam Posner, and Patrik Svensson and originally posted on June 14, 2017.
Every publication method, digital or analog, has a likely lifespan, that is, the length of time before it will stop being accessible unless it is significantly overhauled or replaced. The likely lifespan of well-cared-for paper books can be measured in decades, if not centuries; the likely lifespan of digital projects on the other hand is significantly dependent on the decisions made throughout the development process. This means that, without careful planning and management, digital scholarship is at high risk of being lost permanently. We’ve prepared this guide to help scholars understand the level of risk associated with various digital publication methods (based on our collective experience) and how to minimize that risk. Armed with this knowledge, a scholar can choose a publication method better matched to personal risk tolerance.
What is your risk tolerance?
Low. You want to experiment with digital scholarship, but you want to take every reasonable precaution to ensure the longevity of your work. Likely lifespan: 10+ years.
- Ensure that the underlying data / content that is essential to your project is stored in file formats that can be digitally preserved. Each data type in the ADS Guides to Good Practice has a section on file formats.
- Document how the data / content was collected, processed, and any changes that were made over the course of the project’s lifespan. Think of this as the best methodology section you’ve ever written.
- Identify a long-term preservation repository that best fits your needs (consider the UCLA institutional repository if you are a UCLA affiliate or a domain repository like tDAR).
- Budget for preservation – this means budgeting the time and potential cost for managing the files, preparing them for deposit, and any deposit fees. Ideally these costs should be included in grant applications.
- Work with a librarian or information specialist to identify which data / content should be preserved and how best to structure your data to support citation and reuse. You can reach out to the Digital Archaeology Team for this type of consultation!
- Think about how your data / content can be separate from any interface or applications used to access it. This means making sure that you can export everything – without losing features or parts.
Medium. You want to push boundaries and you’re prepared to take some risks to do it. Likely lifespan: 5-10 years.
- Publish your scholarship using a popular and well-supported content management system such as WordPress, Drupal, Scalar, or Omeka. Try to only install plugins and themes that have ongoing support and large user bases. For file types try to use the most common/best supported whenever possible, ideally either saving them or a copy in a preservation format as found in the ADS Guides to Good Practice.
- If you are unable to realize the project using a content management system and need to build a custom application, try to minimize external packages, libraries, and other dependencies in the development. Weigh the importance of a feature or specific functionality against the cost of maintaining that feature over time before adding it to your project. Work with your technical partners to identify what the best tools are currently for your needs but emphasize the important of being able to maintain the codebase over time with realistic expectations around budget. Read below for important questions and considerations when taking this route.
- Work with a librarian or information specialist to identify which data / content are fundamental to your project and how to ensure that they remain accessible beyond the life of your application.
High. Your scholarship is only possible in interactive digital environments and you’re prepared to take risks to realize it. Likely lifespan: 3-5 years.
- Publish your scholarship using a content management system with a large, engaged community supporting the ongoing maintenance. For websites, that could be WordPress, Drupal, Scalar, or Omeka. Try to only install plugins and themes that have ongoing support and large user bases. For file types try to use the most common/best supported whenever possible, ideally either saving them or a copy in a preservation format as found in the ADS Guides to Good Practice.
- Build a custom application to publish your scholarship. Work with your technical partners to identify what the best tools are currently for your needs but emphasize the important of being able to maintain the codebase over time with realistic expectations around budget. Read below for important questions and considerations when taking this route.
Managing Risk
There are a lot of ways to reduce the risk that your digital publication will become inaccessible. Here are some ideas.
- If possible, plan a digital project that creates ongoing scholarly value for you. Much digital scholarship vanishes because its creators treat it as a book that they publish and “shelve”. This means no one notices when it falls apart. If you plan a digital tool that will be an active component of your scholarly toolkit instead of a one-off, your active engagement with it over the long-term will help you stay ahead of most of the issues that disable digital scholarship.
- Partner with a librarian or other digital archival specialist to identify what can (and should) be deposited, how best to document throughout the development process and to design a curatorial statement for your digital project. A digital project normally has multiple distinct components, such as assets, products, and design. The curatorial statement should identify which of your project’s components are long-term scholarly resources (i.e. the data or content) that must be preserved so it can be cited by scholars, and which, while important to the success of the project, can be ephemeral or can be preserved in archival images and videos (i.e. the interactivity or design). That will let you plan and budget for the necessary preservation work, which will make it much easier down the road. Reach out to the Digital Archaeology Lab team for this type of consultation!
- Build a team. If you’re the only person who has access to the project materials, then you are also a “single point of failure” for the entire project. If you collaborate with a small team, on the other hand, it makes your digital object much more resilient. Other people will be able to access the materials in case anything happens to you, and since they share a sense of ownership, they’ll be more likely to try to preserve the web object without you. But consider transitions and onboarding as members of your team move on and need to be replaced. Documentation is key!
- Consider releasing any custom code for your project under an open-source license (e.g., Creative Commons), and deposit it along with your data / content, or link to it in any article that you publish about your project. Computer code is almost always written as plain ASCII text, which makes it very easy to preserve. While the code itself might not work in twenty years, having access to it (especially if it is well-commented) will let future scholars recreate your project much more easily. The UCs are creating an open source center that can assist with planning for this process.
- Be strategic when partnering with institutional technology support groups on your projects. Such teams can be excellent partners for short- or medium-term projects (e.g., 3-10 years), but may not be able to sustain partnership for the duration of longer projects. Also, these partners may be constrained to working with “active” members of their institution — when scholars leave or retire, or students graduate, the capability to continue the partnership may vanish. If you do partner with such a team, try to design your project to match their strengths (in alignment with the above recommendations, of course) and maintain an active line of communication with them, e.g. by scheduling an in-person check-in meeting with the manager in charge of your hosting at least once per year. Keeping that relationship strong will help you get earlier warnings and more support in case any problems occur.
- Find ongoing funding. Most digital projects “disappear” because they are only funded by one-time grants. That pays for their creation, but not for the maintenance necessary to keep them operational. If you can secure ongoing funding for your project (e.g., from an endowed chair or via active and ongoing fundraising efforts), however, you can easily solve many of the issues that compromise interactive digital objects.
Do you have an idea for a digital project? Reach out to the Digital Archaeology Lab team to work through your specific risk tolerance and needs.