Measure for Measure: Tracking Effort in Born Digital Processing

Measure for Measure: Tracking Effort in Born Digital  Processing. Erika Farr. CurateGear 2015. January 7, 2015.
     Presentation at CurateGear on measuring and tracking efforts. The percent of effort for each task was helpful. Some notes from the slides:

FY2014 Metrics Gathering

• Three Digital Archives staff members processing born digital collections
• Established categories for measuring effort
• Obtain Data, Virus Check
• Ingest
• Appraisal and Developing Processing Plan
• Collection Processing (Arrangement and Description, Privacy and Restrictions)
• Prepare for Access 
• Used Redbooth for business collaboration tool

Processing Metrics in FY2014

• Processed born-digital material in 5 collections
• Processed over 2 GB worth of data, over 4100 files
• 388 hours of effort
• On average the processing completed over 5MB per hour, 18 files per hour.

Digital Archives Effort by Task

• 4% Obtain Data
• 1% Ingest
• 19% Appraisal and Processing Plan
• 71% Collection processing
• 5% Prepare for Access

Metrics are useful for:

• Creating and modifying workflow and deciding the tools to use
• Business planning for acquiring collections, staffing, budgeting, and prioritizing 
• Determining the total cost of collections

Digital Preservation Matters.