Digital Preservation: NDSA Publishes 2017 Fixity Survey Report

From NDSA:

The NDSA Fixity Survey Working Group is happy to announce the publication of the 2017 Fixity Survey Report. The report summarizes the results of the 2017 survey, including both broad trends and detailed information captured in the survey about respondent’s fixity practices. The Fixity Survey Working Group would like to thank the 89 organizations who took the time to complete the survey and provide the community with information around these issues.
The 84% of respondents who utilize fixity information provided details about when and why fixity is checked, the amount of content that is being managed, if hardware or software is being used for fixity checking processes, relationships between cloud services and individual fixity practices, and more.

From the Executive Summary:

Fixity checking, or the practice of algorithmically reviewing digital content to insure that it has not changed over time, is a complex but essential aspect in digital preservation management. To date, there have been no broadly established best practices surrounding fixity checking, perhaps largely due to the wide variety of digital preservation systems and solutions employed by cultural heritage organizations. In an attempt to understand the common practices that exist for fixity checking, as well as the challenges institutions face when implementing a fixity check routine, the National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) Fixity Working Group developed and published a survey on fixity practices in fall of 2017.

Direct to Full Text Report (PDF) and Data Set (via OSF)

Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Data Files, Digital Preservation, Management and Leadership, News, Preservation