POLICY 14: Digital masters maintained in accordance with accepted standards
4.14.1 The digital medium is universally acknowledged to be a relatively more fragile and easily corrupted medium, compared to traditional archival materials. It is thus vital that measures are taken to ensure the security, authenticity and integrity of digital records. The technical standards that will be used to create archival digital records will be of the utmost importance in this regard. All governmental bodies within the Western Cape Province must ensure that digital records adhere to standards of security, authenticity and integrity.
4.14.2 Digital masters must be managed in terms of the highest international and national standards.
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The digital master is the digital reproduction of the best quality and the highest resolution to be maintained as the single main record. Digital masters may also include lower resolution forms of the digital content or partial selections of the digital content that may be used for open access purposes.
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Digital masters must be lodged with or transferred to the Provincial Digital Repository (PDR). Any digital record existing outside of the Provincial Digital Repository (PDR) is not considered to be an authentic digital master.
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All metadata relating to the master copy is retained in the digital master and must be maintained as an integral part of the digital master, this includes:
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Digital masters, as the master copy of digital records, must each carry a digital signature to ensure authenticity and to ensure that they cannot be modified without invalidating the integrity of the digital master. This signature should enable linkage back to the original creator, in the case of government records this will be a governmental body.
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Descriptive metadata that outlines the content, and which is used to categorise and contextualise the digital object.
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Provenance metadata, identifying the source and identifying this as the authentic version of the content.
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Version metadata, including the history of any changes and preparations that have been performed on the digital record.
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Creation metadata, including basic parameters associated with the content such as the equipment and settings used for digitisation, as well as identification of the original creator.
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Preservation metadata, designed to identify the nature of the content and the threats to the sustainability of the content.
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Rights metadata, including copyright and moral rights information concerning who is allowed to access, in what form, and under which conditions of license, and which specific types of digital content is included, and what are they allowed to do with this content, such as modification of the content.
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Each digital master is required to have a unique address or name that provides reference back to the original record within the Provincial Digital Repository (PDR). This may take the form of a URI, URL or URN or any other internationally agreed unique naming convention. This unique address is to be used when citing references back to the digital master.
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All digital records, other than digital masters, are not considered as authentic records; this includes exact copies of the digital master from the Provincial Digital Repository (PDR).
POLICY 15: Protection and preservation of digital heritage
4.15.1 Mitigating the risk of loss of the digital heritage requires that clear action be taken to ensure that a disaster management plan and backups are in place and that centralised backup services are provided.
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Each repository, holding digital heritage records, must develop and maintain a disaster management plan.
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The disaster management plan must address how information lost or damage through a disaster may be identified, retrieved and made available as soon as possible following the disaster. Disaster planning must be aimed at ensuring the integrity, authenticity and efficacy of digital records.
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An integral part of the disaster management plan, is a register of digital heritage maintained in the repository. This register must be maintained separately from the backup sites and be accessible immediately when required.
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A safe and secure backup site for all digital records must be established with sufficient capacity to house the contents of all other provincial digital repositories. The backup site must be maintained under the most secure conditions, both physical and technological.
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The Provincial Digital Repository (PDR) must have mutual backup agreements with at least one other Repository.
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The backup processes between the digital repositories should be automated and should be able to continue without human action. Monitoring systems should be in place to provide an alert in the event of failure.
POLICY 16: Living heritage digital records
4.16.1 The living heritage, although unique, will be included in the Provincial Digital Repository (PDR).
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The Provincial Digital Repository (PDR) must integrate and comply with the same metadata standards with regard to the living heritage.
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The Provincial Digital Repository (PDR) must be in compliance with the documentation and recording requirements identified in the Living Heritage Policy.
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