Digital Preservation Coalition’s Rapid Assessment Model workshop

On the 9th March 2021, AWM were delighted to host a Digital Preservation Coalition workshop for AWM members.

The Digital Preservation Coalition’s Rapid Assessment Model (DPC RAM) is a quick way for any organization to assess its digital preservation maturity.  The results should be used to inform planning. The DPC recommends preferably a risk based approach to planning using The National Archives DiAGRAM – the Digital Archives Graphical Risk Assessment Model.

There were nine participants at the workshop.  The general consensus was that:

• The model was very easy to use.
• Sometimes it was difficult to choose between two scores because a service scored more highly in certain aspects of the section and lower in other aspects. The general approach was to choose the lower score as the overall scoring for the section.
• The RAM provided a useful overview of the service and helped to concentrate attention on digital preservation activity in the face of other demands on staff time.
• The results would be useful for taking to stakeholders both in terms of showing the position of the service but also being a vehicle to explain fundamental principles about digital preservation to uninformed stakeholders.
• It was accepted that reviewing the service with this tool is an important part of its use. Indeed it was agreed that the workshop will be re-run in a years time so that participants can revisit the tool and see how their performance has changed over the last 12 months

Full details about the RAM including a handbook and worksheet can be found here.

Anonymised RAM scoring results from the workshop can be found below.