Constructing risk in trustworthy digital repositories
| Date | 09 August 2024 |
| Pages | 1508-1527 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-08-2023-0157 |
| Published date | 09 August 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Rebecca D. Frank |
Constructing risk in trustworthy
digital repositories
Rebecca D. Frank
School of Information Sciences, The University of Tennessee Knoxville,
Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Abstract
Purpose –This article investigates the construction of risk within trustworthy digital repository audits. It
contends that risk is a social construct, and social factors influence how stakeholders in digital preservation
processes comprehend and react to risk.
Design/methodology/approach –This research employs a qualitative research design involving in-depth
semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in the Trustworthy Digital Repository Audit and Certification
(TRAC) process, and document analysis of the TRAC checklist and audit reports. I apply an analytic
framework based on the Model for the Social Construction of Risk in Digital Preservation to this data.
Findings –The findings validate the argument that risk in digital preservation is indeed socially constructed
and demonstrate that the eight factors in the Model for the Social Construction of Risk in Digital Preservation
do indeed influence how stakeholders constructed their understandingof risk. Of the eight factors in the model,
communication, expertise, uncertainty and vulnerability were found to be the most influential in the
construction of risk during the TRAC audit process. The influence of complexity, organizations political
culture, were more limited.
Originality/value –This article brings new insights to digital preservation by demonstrating the importance
of understanding risk as a social construct. I argue that risk identification and/or assessment is only the first
step in the long-term preservation of digital information and show that perceptions of risk in digital
preservation are shaped by social factors by applying theories of social construction and risk perception to an
analysis of the TRAC process.
Keywords Digital preservation, Trustworthy digital repository, ISO 16363, Risk, Social construction
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Risk in digital preservation has been understood in a probabilistic way, treating it as a
discrete fact that rational actors will interpret and respond to in the same way. This approach
is outdated. Instead, I argue that risk should be understood as a socialconstruct influenced by
various social factors. These factors shape how stakeholders in digital preservation
processes understand and respond to risk information, ultimately influencing the outcomes
and actions taken in response to that information.
Recent research has highlighted challenges in digital preservation by demonstrating that
organizations, systems, and tools with a preservation focus are in fact failing to properly
safeguard digital content (Rieger et al., 2022). This, coupled with the 2022 memorandum from
the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) recommending that federal funding
agencies in the US update their guidelines to require data produced through publicly funded
research be deposited in digital repositories (Nelson, 2022), brings urgency to the work of
ensuring that repositories entrusted with valuable digital information are up to the task of
long-term preservation.
Certification systemsfor trustworthydigital repositories (TDRs)are one mechanismthat the
digital preservation community has developed to evaluate whether repositories are indeed able
JD
80,6
1508
I would like to thank Dr Elizabeth Yakel, Ph.D., Dr Paul Conway, Ph.D., Dr Paul Courant, Ph.D. and Dr
Shobita Parthasarathy, Ph.D., for the feedback and guidance at various stages of this project. I would
also like to thank Megh Marathe and Carl Haynes for the assistance with data analysis. Funding: This
research was funded in part by a University of Michigan Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 18 August 2023
Revised 2 June 2024
Accepted 9 June 2024
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 80 No. 6, 2024
pp. 1508-1527
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-08-2023-0157
to preserve their content long-term. In this article, I app ly the Model for the Social Construction of
Risk in Digital Preservation (Frank, 2020) to the Trustworthy Repositories Audit and
Certification (TRAC) process in order to examine how stakeholders in a TRAC audit construct
their understanding of risk. This article is motivatedby the following research questions:
RQ1. To what degree do the following eight factors which influence risk perception come
into play in the audit process: communication, complexity, expertise, organizations,
political culture, trust, uncertainty, and vulnerability?
RQ2. In what ways and why do they emerge when repository staff and auditors consider
risk as articulated in the TRAC standard?
My findings extend this previous research to support the argument that risk in digital
preservation is socially constructed and that the eight factors in the Model for the Social
Construction of Risk in Digital Preservation –communication, complexity, expertise,
organizations, political cultur e, trust, uncertainty, and vulner ability –influence the
construction of risk in the TRAC audit process. I also found that communication,
expertise, uncertainty, and vulnerability emerged as the most influential factors in how
auditors and repository staff members perceived risk during TRAC audits. Complexity,
organizations, political culture, and trust had a distinct but more limited impact.
Literature review
Digital preservation and risk
Digital preservation consists of those actions that ensure the viability and authenticity of
digital objects over time (e.g. Berman, 2008;Hitchcock et al., 2007). Risk is a foundational
element of digital preservation (e.g. Barons et al., 2021;Conway, 1996;Schaefer et al., 2021).
The long-term preservation of digital information is an ongoing exercise in risk management.
In order to ensure the longevity of digital content, repositories preserving digital assets need
to develop a sustainable organizational structure and financial stability as well as create
robust processes to ensure the viability and accessibility of file formats and the long-term
storage and management of data. Digital repositories must have the ability to manage risk in
all of these areas (Anderson, 2005;Garrett and Waters, 1996;Hey et al., 2009).
The relationship between risk and digital preservation has been well documented. Some
definitions characterize digital preservation as a type of risk assessment (Conway, 1996;
Vermaaten et al., 2012) or risk management (Barateiro et al., 2010), and others describe digital
preservation as consisting of actions or practices that include risk assessment and/or risk
management (Barateiro et al., 2010;Ross and McHugh, 2006a,b;Strodl et al., 2007).
In digital preservation risk has tended to be examined and discussed in a deterministic
way that treats it as both knowable and calculable. Recent initiatives have taken steps to
develop systems that will help repositories quantify their risk exposure (e.g. Barons et al.,
2021). Research and scholarship about risk in digital preservation has tended to focus on
identifying and/or classifying types of threats and vulnerabilities (e.g. Saffady, 2020;Schaefer
et al., 2021;Vermaaten et al., 2012), and developing typologies of risk (e.g. Barateiro et al., 2010;
Clifton, 2005;Dappert, 2009;Mayernik et al., 2020).
Although it is useful to carryout this descriptive work, it is also important to understand
how people in digital preservation perceive and construct their understanding of risk (e.g.
Nelkin,1989) because digitalpreservation outcomesdepend on the actions of peoplein response
to risk information –not juston the identification of risk (e.g. Dearborn and Meister, 2017).
Trustworthy digital repositories
Certification as a TDR is one way that digital repositories have demonstrated their
trustworthinessfor long-term preservation (Center forResearch Libraries, n.d.). Processes for
Journal of
Documentation
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