title: New Perspectives on Economic Modeling for Digital Curation
creators: Neil Grindley Ulla Kejser Hervé L’Hours
abstract: 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.
keywords: economics models curation preservation strategy decision-making costs benefits risks sustainability.