On the relevance of Enterprise Architecture and IT Governance for Digital Preservation

Abstract

Digital Preservation has been recognized as a key challenge in providing trusted information and sustainable eGovernment services. However, there has been little convergence on aligning the technically oriented approaches to provide longevity of information in ever-changing technology environments, and the organizational problems that public bodies are facing, through a systematic framework that aligns organizational and technological issues in the social domain of eGovernment. In this paper, we discuss the relevance of Enterprise Architecture and IT Governance for digital preservation and analyze key frameworks for digital preservation from this viewpoint. We assess the coverage of the leading criteria catalog for trustworthy repositories in terms of Enterprise Architecture dimensions and in how far these criteria align with established Enterprise Architecture and IT Governance frameworks. We discuss the analysis process we were following and present key observations that result from our work. These point to a number of steps that should be taken in order to consolidate digital preservation approaches and frameworks and align them with established frameworks and best practice models in Enterprise Architecture and IT Governance.