Digital Preservation: Securing Your Data

The Fundamentals

The KAUST University Archives manages a digital preservation service that guarantees the long-term preservation and access of valuable KAUST intellectual and historical digital materials. The following are the five fundamental aspects of the service that enable long-term preservation.

1. File manifest and ingest verification

The University Archives works with KAUST Faculty and Staff to develop pre-ingest file manifests to ensure we receive all expected digital materials. All digital materials will be checked against the manifest during ingest to confirm their presence or absence. An ingest log indicates all digital materials received and if any were missing. In addition, virus and quality control checks are performed on the ingested materials to confirm file integrity and quality.

2.   Metadata Capture and Registration

As part of the ingest process, we create a metadata record for the digital materials in our collection management system. We run a series of actions to generate and capture the following metadata for all digital materials:

• File name

• File location within existing file structure or hierarchy

• File size

• File format and type

• File checksum

3. Secure storage

 The University Archives secure storage provides long-term active digital preservation and secure access with a system aligned with the international standard in digital preservation(OAIS ISO 14721). Components of our secure storage include:

• Secure retention of original file and format

• 100% data integrity and durability

• All data is fully encrypted

• Multiple copies across multiple locations with self-healing

• Two Factor Authentication

4. Active monitoring

Digital materials require frequent monitoring to ensure their long-term integrity and access. The University Archives digital preservation service active monitoring actions include:

• Integrity health checks to protect against loss and corruption

• File authenticity and provenance with fixity checking and audit trails

• Active migration of files to newer formats, during and post-ingest

• 600+ migration pathways for over 1,600 file formats

5. Documentation

Active and persistent documentation of University Archives services, processes, and workflows ensure the long-term viability of valuable KAUST digital materials.