Managing Digital Assets: The Organizational Case

1. Managing Digital Assets:The Organizational Case Marilu Goodyear Vice Provost, Information Services University of Kansas February 6, 2005 Charleston, South Carolina

2. Evolution of Campus Discussions • Digital Project • Digital Library • Institutional Repository • Digital Assets • What are they? • Own, Use, Rent, Create, Borrow, Research Partner Creates, etc.

3. Fundamentals of Making the Case • Define in terms of the audience • Solve a problem or • Create a problem and then solve it • Tell a good story • Only after agreement on issue ask for money • Most important aspect is not money; campus awareness, understanding and acceptance of responsibility

4. The Campus Players • Faculty • Academic Leadership • Chief Academic Officer

5. The Campus Players • Chief Financial Officer • The People Who Worry About Data • Institutional Research • Data stewards in administrative offices • Information Technology Support Staff • Research Assistants and Graduate Assistants • University Relations/External Affairs • University Counsel

6. Solution To What? • Dissemination problems • Finding the audience • Why do we pay faculty? • Where did I put that? • Opps, the operating system is toast • Darn, the back-up system was not running • Of my XXX, there seems to be a problem with this data

7. Goals to Achieve • Keep it safe • Increase the likehood that the asset will be around • Increase the likehood that it is in its original form • Make it known • I can find it • Others can find it and link it to the institution • Meet research agency guidelines • Keep it around • Future generations can find it • Someone can find it six months from now

8. The Administrative Case: The Pain • Goals important for institutional trust to be maintained • Not taking care of digital assets has the potential to be the new “not taking care of students” • IT security will only be accomplished through defense-in depth; digital asset management is an important part • Intellectual Property issues just beginning to surface • Cost of not managing assets • IT security incident cost • New production of data • Totally decentralized solutions not likely to be successful • Do departmental managers even know they are digital asset managers?

9. The Administrative Case: The Gain • Demonstrate value of the institution • Knowledge produced may be an important parallel value proposition to qualify of students produced • Faculty productivity • Local IT staff and research assistants know how much time spent in activities resulting from poor digital asset management • Make it easy for the faculty (gets past the pain of “we have to make the faculty do something”) • Enhances collaborative research • A non-disciplinary focused repository broadens access • Getting rid of the “404” problem: persistent addresses and long-term managed storage

10. Ways to Deliver the Message • Educational programs • Must paint a vision of how it will work • Presentations in regular meetings • Interactions with faculty • Identifying faculty who are publishing articles • Library liaison • Research Centers • Interaction with IT professionals • Collaborative relationships across campus • Interaction with research assistants • Extreme makeover for faculty • “IS Eye for the Luddite Guy”

11. Marilu Goodyear Vice Provost for Information Services University of Kansas goodyear@ku.edu