New Perspectives on Economic Modeling for Digital Curation

Society is increasingly dependent on the availability of digital
information assets however the resources that are available for
managing the assets over time (curating) are limited. As such, it is
increasingly vital that organizations are able to judge the
effectiveness of their investments into curation activities. For
those responsible for digital curation, it is an ongoing challenge to
ensure that the assets remain valuable in a sustainable manner.
Digital curation and preservation practices are still evolving and
they are not well aligned across different organizations and
different sectors. The lack of clear definitions and standardization
makes it difficult to compare the costs and benefits of multiple
curation processes, which again impedes identification of good
practice. This paper introduces a new perspective on modeling the
economics of curation. It describes a framework of interrelated
models that represent different aspects of the economic lifecycle
based around curation. The framework includes a sustainability
model, a cost and benefit model, a business model, and a cost
model. The framework provides a common vocabulary and
clarifies the roles and responsibilities of managers with a demand
for curation of digital assets and suppliers of curation services and
solutions. Further, the framework reflects the context in which
managers operate and how this context influences their decision-making.
This should enable managers to think through different
scenarios around the economics of curation and to analyze the
impact of different decisions to support strategic planning. The
framework is intended to serve as a basis for developing tools to
help managers analyze the costs and benefits associated with
curation. The models are being developed and refined as part of
the EU project 4C “Collaboration to Clarify the Cost of Curation”,
which is bringing together and bridging existing knowledge,
models and tools to create a better understanding of the economics
of curation.