DRAMBORA: About

Developed jointly by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE), the Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA) represents the main intellectual outcome of a period of pilot repository audits undertaken by the DCC throughout 2006 and 2007. It presents a methodology for self-assessment, encouraging organisations to establish a comprehensive self-awareness of their objectives, activities and assets before identifying, assessing and managing the risks implicit within their organisation.

Within DRAMBORA, digital curation is characterised as a risk-management activity; the job of digital curator is to rationalise the uncertainties and threats that inhibit efforts to maintain digital object authenticity and understandability, transforming them into manageable risks. Six stages are implicit within the process. Initial stages require auditors to develop an organisational profile, describing and documenting the repository's mandate, objectives, activities and assets. Latterly, risks are derived from each of these, and assessed in terms of their likelihood and potential impact. Finally, auditors are encouraged to conceive of appropriate risk management responses to the identified risk. The process enables effective resource allocation, enabling repository administrators to identify and categorise the areas where shortcomings are most evident or have the greatest potential for disruption. The process itself is an iterative one and therefore subsequent recursions will evaluate the effectiveness of prior risk management implementations.

For more information about the pursuit of an audit methodology, and the research leading to the publication of DRAMBORA, read the report Preservation Pressure Points [PDF format, 173 kB].