A New Lifecycle Model Enabling Optimal Digital Curation

Abstract

This study recognizes the international need for a broadly applicable lifecycle model to facilitate efficient and systematic digital curation. Consequently, it has developed a generic digital curation lifecycle model, titled the d-KISTI model. This model was developed by applying content analysis and thematic coding to data collected through a two-year review of relevant literature, existing conceptual lifecycle models, and empirical investigations of KISTI’s digital curation practice. It was then refined further through consultations with many international digital curation experts. The d-KISTI model presents actions and their relationships with one another that have gone previously unacknowledged in the DCC curation lifecycle model and other existing curation models. These actions and relationships, which are articulated at length within the study, reflect the rapidly changing nature of the global digital curation landscape and offer more representative curation activities to information organizations. Moreover, through its investigation and analysis of KISTI’s digital curation practices, this study contributes to existing literature on digital curation in Korea. Ultimately, the d-KISTI model seeks to optimize digital curation strategies and practices, both within Korea and internationally, and, moreover, hopes to serve as a foundational touchstone for future studies on digital curation.