Administrative Responsibility

The organization makes explicit its commitment to the development of a Trusted Digital Repository that complies with prevailing standards, policies, and practices. You may also refer to Tutorial Section 5: Challenges, Balancing Multiple Stakeholders.

Organizational requirements:

• provide evidence of fundamental commitment to implementing community-agreed standards, best practices
• commit to understanding and implementing the OAIS standard
• meet national/international standards on environment
• meet or exceed community standards and share measurements with depositors
• involve external community experts in regularly validating/certifying processes and procedures
• commit to transparency and accountability in all actions

No matter how successful an organization is at meeting the requirements for the other attributes, this is the fundamental attribute that can make or break the program. If the organization is not truly committed, the program will not thrive.

0101 The technological role for meeting the requirements of this attribute is to advise on the adoption of appropriate standards, recommend the means for complying with standards, respond to the demands of evolving standards and requirements, and document decisions and actions as needed in support of organizational objectives.

$$$$ Designating resources for digital preservation to cover, for example, staff, equipment, and storage costs is one way to demonstrate the organization’s commitment. Sustainable funding may be addressed at a later stage in the organization’s development.

Background Note: Administrative Responsibility is distinguished from Organizational Viability. The former addresses high-level commitment to OAIS and other prevailing standards, as well as the establishment of external relationships to enable the digital preservation program. The latter addresses internal and operational aspects of the organization.