2012-2013

Identifying Continuing Opportunities for National Collaboration (ICONC)

Analyzing partnerships and collaboration in digital preservation to find the criteria for success.

The Identifying Continuing Opportunities for National Collaboration (ICONC) project analyzed the design and management of collaborative networks to better understand the criteria that lead to their successes and failures. Using a broad-based evaluation of collaborative models as context, the project reviewed and documented the landscape of digital preservation and digital stewardship and explored a range of opportunities for strengthening digital preservation practices and collaboration across all 50 states and within the National Digital Stewardship Alliance environment. The project brought a strong focus on cross-sector opportunities and collaborations (academic, government, public, memory, commercial, etc.)

The ICONC project resulted in a pilot set of visualization tools that can be used to analyze data representing U.S.-based collaborative digital stewardship, curation and preservation work. The ICONC project team compiled this cross-sector data using stakeholder interviews, professional association surveys, and grant-award and publication data mining.

By leveraging this data and mapping both historical and current collaborative activities across a variety of sectors, leaders can gain insights into questions such as:

  • Which institutions or regions are innovation hubs for digital preservation?
  • Are specific regions or states under-represented in digital preservation initiatives?
  • Which organizations or sectors are driving efforts in a given region or state?
  • Which organizations act as connectors, engaging an array of project partners across domains?

Project Outputs:

Project Partners:

  • National Digital Stewardship Alliance