Charging Policy

Version 4, November 2007.

Contents:

1. Preamble
2. Introduction
3. Charging levels
   • 3.1 Management and administration
   • 3.2 Ingest
   • 3.3 Dissemination
   • 3.4 Storage and refreshment
4. Conditions of deposit of data
5. Charging community categories
6. Conclusion

1. Preamble

The principles outlined within this charging policy are shared by HDS and OTA who, like the ADS, aim to follow charging levels base on four elements of work: Management and Administration; Ingest; Dissemination; and Storage and refreshment. Emphasis on any of these four elements may differ according to archiving service and the nature of projects with which they routinely deal. In addition day rates may vary.

2. Introduction

Professional ethics within the archaeological community require that access to primary data should be free at the point of use. This approach has been extended to digital archives, although it is accepted that in order to recoup the ongoing costs of digital preservation, some means of cost recovery is essential (Condron et al 1999).. Within the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) this led, in the late 1990s, to the introduction of a charging policy. The central tenets of this policy remain that:

• ADS resources will be freely accessible
• archiving costs should be recovered from the body funding the archaeological investigation, or research
• a one-off payment collected at the time of deposit will be used to safeguard the long-term future of digital data

This new edition of the charging policy reviews the categories of depositors for which charging has been implemented and defines the new level of charges in operation. A refined level of charging has been introduced in order to reflect the increasing volume (both in file size and number of files) of an average deposit and the related storage and refreshment costs for digital data. The ADS currently receives some core funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The AHRC have indicated that the ADS should investigate a move toward a responsive mode funding for archives created by AHRC funded projects in the long term. In the past the ADS has waived deposit charges for researchers based in UK Higher Education Institutions. Due to the change in our core funding arrangements, from 1st January 2008 ALL deposits, whether from projects created within or outwith UK Higher Education will be subject to some level of charge.

The purpose of this document is to make the scale of charges explicit and open so that those preparing project applications are able to allow for appropriate additional costs to cover digital archiving. From pilot studies conducted by ADS it is usual for digital archiving costs to add an overhead of less than 5% to the total project budget, and given economies of scale for most substantial projects the costs will be between 1% and 3%. The ADS implements this policy sensitively and does not intend it to lead to any digital data being lost to the community. Depositors for whom the charging policy creates major difficulties are invited to contact the Collections Development Manager. Indeed, whilst this policy document provides an introductory guide we require that all potential depositors contact the ADS Collections Development Manager prior to the submission of project designs including ADS costs.

3. Charging levels

The following charges apply where data sets are supplied in ADS delivery formats, with accompanying documentation, as stipulated in the Guidelines for Depositors . Where other formats are involved, or where the data as supplied to the ADS requires the attention of a member of ADS staff, prices will be supplied on request. The cost is calculated on the basis of four elements:

3.1. Management and administration

The cost reflects the time spent in processing the deposit, including negotiation with the depositor, dealing with rights management issues and deposit licences and issuing invoices. For most straightforward archives this will amount to one or two days of the Collections Development Manager (CDM) and a day of the Administrator, costed at current daily rates plus overheads, but more substantial projects of long duration may typically require in excess of ten days of CDM time.

3.2. Ingest

The costs reflect the number of ADS staff days necessary to migrate the data to ADS preferred formats; the harmonisation of filenames, the creation of delivery and preservation formats and their transfer to offline storage, checksum proecedures, and creation of file level and project level metadata, and its entry within the ADS Collections Management System. The time required will be dependent on the number and complexity of files deposited .

For simplification files are banded according to number and complexity of format.

Images, text, simple 'flat' spreadsheets and tables cost less than CAD, GIS and relational databases, for example. The difference in cost is a result of the migration and validation aspects of digital archiving. For example, to assess the success of the migration of an image file it only has to be looked at, whereas for a more complicated file type, such as a GIS, it is necessary to ensure that the full functionality of the file has been preserved during its migration. The latter process takes more time and hence costs more.

3.3. Dissemination

The file-based ingest charges itemised above include an allowance to cover the creation of a basic archive delivery web page, within the ADS catalogue, and the delivery of data via simple file download. Should the depositor require a special interface (on-line searchable database, interactive map interface etc) then such services will be charged at the current ADS day rates, plus university overheads on staff costs. As the interface requirements for each project will be unique these must be subject to price on request, but as an approximate indicator, an online queriable database may generally cost c. £1000-£5000, whilst a fully-functional GIS interface may cost as much as £10,000.

3.4. Storage and refreshment

The term 'storage' encompasses the ongoing periodic process of data refreshment. In order to take advantage of technological advances and hardware and software changes, archives have to periodically upgrade systems or parts thereof. As an example, during 10 years of existence, the ADS has progressed through three generations of equipment. Thus it is operating on a five year upgrade cycle. This is expensive both in terms of equipment and staff time. The long term cost of storage is often difficult to conceptualize but a dataset maintained for 100 years would go through 20 refreshments based on the five year cycle.

The passage of time suggests that the 50p per megabyte charge in the ADS charging policy is a correct level of charge: a small financial surplus has built up to form a contingency preservation fund. It was envisaged as an 'into perpetuity' preservation charge to cover 'ongoing management and refreshment'. However, based on just 10 year's experience and 2 major systems upgrades it is now possible to more accurately model these ongoing costs.

Ongoing preservation can be funded based upon an initial charge of 30p per megabyte. For deposits over 100Mb the ADS will therefore make a charge of 30p per megabyte to cover storage and refreshment.This policy applies to deposits up to 100Gb in size. For deposits of more than 100Gb, prices will be available on request.

This charge will be applied to the whole preservation footprint of an archive. The preservation footprint of an archive will include both those files deposited and their archival versions calculated according to current preservation practice.

4. Conditions of deposit of data

• Data must be supplied with either an OASIS record id number or a metadata record for the project. A template for the metadata record will be supplied.
• Relevant documentation, depending on the file type deposited. See Guidlines for depositors for more details.
• Introductory and Overview texts describing the project and the dataset deposited. The Introductory text will summarise the aims and objectives of the initial research project, the data collected, and any special characteristics of the digital archive. The Overview text will provide an outline contents list of the archive, along with a guide to the documentation required for its reuse.
• All charges are subject to University of York overheads on staff costs and VAT at the standard rate.
• All invoices will be issued by the University of York Finance Department. The University follows a standard 30-day payment system.
• All depositors will be required to sign the ADS Standard Deposit Licence (Microsoft Word Document, RTF).
• In cases where a depositor subsequently withdraws their deposit, the ADS reserves its right to charge a withdrawal fee to recover value added to data through the archival process, management and dissemination by the Service. Withdrawal fees may include all costs incurred by the Service up to withdrawal minus any deposit charges where these have been levied at deposit.

5. Charging community categories

The following table defines those categories of data depositors from whom the ADS would seek to recover costs. As it is assumed that data depositors would pass charging on to the funding agency grant-aiding the research, the categories are defined by funding agency.

6. Conclusion

Within the archaeological community there are well established procedures and practice for the archiving of excavation and survey research records in traditional media with organisations such as museums. There are scales of one-off deposit charges levied by museums on new deposits. Developers have also accepted the principle of funding archiving costs for archaeological research undertaken in advance of re-development. These charges and the developer funding of the archive costs are based on a single defined charge at deposit. A deposit-based charge therefore should involve a form of endowment for the archive and excludes recurrent annual charges.

The ADS has made every effort to ensure its cost models are realistic and are based on the current experience of the Service and other archiving organisations. Areas for proposed charging focus on those where the ADS have experience to date. Charges have been discussed at length by ADS Management Committee, which benefits from expertise of key practioners and stakeholders in the historic environment sector. The proposed implementation of the charging policy has also been designed to minimise identified risks.

November 2007

JDR, CSH, AFA

For more information on refreshment costs, see Refreshment Charges .