Risk Area: Technical

Technological and operational limitations

Findings from the literature review and online survey carried out by the Working Group reveal that many institutions face significant resource limitations, both in staffing and technological infrastructure, which hinder their ability to digitize and manage open access collections. Challenges such as inadequate metadata, insufficient procedural workflows, and technical vulnerabilities were commonly cited as barriers to effectively securing and maintaining accessible digital collections.

“Open datasets must be refined from all personal and institutional secret information before publishing. Unrefined datasets will compromise technical-system vulnerabilities (e.g. IP and digital address info). Last but not least, wrong-indexed datasets may cause plagiarism.”

Research Institution, Turkey

Below, you will find the key technical risks identified, actionable strategies to mitigate these risks, tools to support the implementation of the recommended actions, and good practices to get inspired.

Key Risks

• Limited resources for digitization and open access management.

• Challenges with metadata quality and technological infrastructure.

• Vulnerabilities in securing and maintaining digital collections.

Mitigation Strategies

• Streamline metadata practices: Develop a standardized metadata framework to improve data quality and searchability, even with limited resources.

• Use open-source software or third-party platforms: Where budget constraints exist, consider open-source solutions or third party platforms (such as Flickr Commons and Wikimedia Commons) for managing and displaying digital collections.

• Allocate staff roles for digital collections: Designate specific staff or train existing personnel to manage open access collections, even if as a shared responsibility.

• Regular security audits: Schedule regular reviews of digital infrastructure to identify and address technical vulnerabilities.

Tools & Resources

• Training and guidelines on how to build low-cost digitizing facilities and how to maintain the data:

  • Mobile Digitizing (MobiDig) project online platform offering an open and innovative training on the topic for librarians, archivists, managers of small organizations and Vocational Education and Training (VET) teachers in the field of library science.

  • Pavis, M., Wallace, A., Saunders, S. (2023) Doing Digitisation on a Budget: A Guide to Low-Cost Digital Projects, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

• Open source collection management systems: There are options that offer cost-effective solutions for managing digital collections.

  • Access to Memory (AtoM) - web-based, open source application for standards-based archival description and access in a multilingual, multi-repository environment

  • Omeka - open-source web publishing platforms for sharing digital collections and creating media-rich online exhibits

  • CollectionSpace - web-based, open-source collections management software for cultural heritage organizations, museums & more

  • Tainacan - open source, flexible and powerful repository platform for creating digital archives in WordPress

• Metadata standards and principles: Using consistent metadata standards and principles aids in interoperability and usability of online collections.

  • FAIR principles

  • Dublin Core

  • International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF)

  • GLAM-E Lab (2024) Image and Metadata Handbook for Wikimedia Commons.

  • GLAM-E Lab (2024) Sandbox Template for Wikimedia Commons Metadata Management.

Good Practices

• Tainacan Showcase
• Flickr Commons Members
• Partial list of the GLAM-Wikimedia collaboration projects
• Low-cost digitisation ideas from real life projects in Pavis, M., Wallace, A., Saunders, S. (2023) Doing Digitisation on a Budget: A Guide to Low-Cost Digital Projects, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Use cases

Research data managers don’t make datasets open access, because inadequate or technically misleading data may spread rapidly and be misinterpreted. This can negatively impact the credibility of the research institution and result in difficulties securing future funding.

Digital archivists don’t make raw datasets open access, because unrefined data might contain sensitive personal or institutional information. This could lead to security breaches or exploitation of system vulnerabilities, affecting the safety and privacy of both the institution and its stakeholders.