One of the core challenges that an organisation might face when attempting to achieve ISO 16363 is the complexity of the standard itself. The standard requires compliance with a large number of specific requirements, including those related to organizational infrastructure, digital preservation policies, risk management, and technology. Each of these requirements has a set of sub-requirements that must also be met. As a result, achieving compliance with ISO 16363 can be a complex and time-consuming process, requiring a high level of expertise and attention to detail. The broad coverage of the requirements across all facets of an archive also necessitates cross-functional collaboration between expert stakeholders in each category, which can easily turn the journey towards ISO 16363 in to a highly resource-intensive exercise. As mentioned earlier, organisations that are able to consider the details of the standard from the first phases of creating their archive have an advantage in being able to appropriately resource and plan for the required investment ahead of time.

Building a digital archive that meets the requirements of ISO 16363 requires a deep understanding of the principles and best practices of digital preservation. This includes knowledge of file formats, metadata, storage and retrieval technologies, and the tools and techniques used to ensure the long-term accessibility of digital information. Without knowledge of all these axioms, you'll find it near-impossible to effectively meet each requirement to the satisfaction of an accreditor. It could be valuable to perform an analysis of the knowledge and skillsets of your stakeholders before committing to ISO 16363 to ensure you have all the expertise required to confidently implement each requirement of the standard.  Otherwise, you may need to invest in training and development programmes to ensure that your staff have the necessary skills and knowledge to build and maintain a compliant digital archive.

One of the key underpinnings required for a 16363 compliant digital archive is a mission statement that reflects its commitment to the preservation, long-term retention and management of its digital information. This means that the organisation must clearly define its purpose, goals and intent for building the digital archive. The mission statement should also align with the organisation's overall strategic goals and objectives.

A clear mission statement can also be a valuable boon as you face the ongoing challenges involved with building a compliant archive. Without a clear and concise mission statement, it can be difficult to define the scope of the archive and develop a preservation plan that meets the needs of the repository and its stakeholders. Not only can precisely summarising your organisations goals in a mission statement be a frustrating process, it can be difficult to reconcile with the technical specifics of your preservation plan. It's a good idea to involve your expert stakeholders in the mission statement process to make sure all relevant perspectives have been considered. Their input can also be invaluable in defining an effective and, perhaps more importantly, actionable preservation plan.

The preservation plan defines the approach the archive will take in the long-term support of its mission statement, but also should outline the specific policies and procedures the archive will follow to ensure the long-term preservation of digital content, including how it will acquire, store, manage, and provide access to the content. The plan should also define the repository's designated community and associated knowledge bases and make these definitions appropriately accessible. 

Documentation is a critical component of achieving ISO 16363. It assures both stakeholders and accreditors that the archive is meeting its requirements and fully performing in its role. This entails documenting all the processes, decisions, goals, technical information and any other adjacent material that helps to build a more precise image of your archive.  In addition, the repository must have appropriate contracts or deposit agreements for digital materials that it manages, preserves and provides access to. You should spend time specifying your acquisition, maintenance, access, and withdrawal policies in collaboration with depositors and other relevant parties. This ensures that there is clarity and transparency around your archive's obligations and responsibilities to its stakeholders.

The benefit of robust documentation is clear, helping you to continue ensuring that your policies and procedures are carried out in approved, consistent ways. Accreditation with a gold-standard guideline like 16363, the clearest indicator of sound and standards-based practice, is facilitated by procedural accountability and documentation.

Ultimately, your ability to execute on a plan that supports ISO 16363 compliance will be heavily rooted in the tools you select for your system. If you chose to arrange a DIY workflow of individual open tools, for example, you'll need to ensure that each of them is capable of satisfying the requirements related to it. Many open tools wrap several functions you'll require in your digital archive in to convenient platforms, and some of these will provide you the necessary information and data to comprise a satisfactory implementation of an ISO 16363 requirement. It's highly recommended that you identify opportunities to meet several requirements at once with one tool, this will significantly reduce the complexity of your system and the flow of data between them. Your tools will only be able to cover so much, however, and will be limited to supporting your conformance only in technical aspects and how they reinforce good-practice workflows. Any aspect of the 16363 guideline that is not founded on the technical capabilities of your tools will require more nuanced investigation.

Our Digital Curation platform, Curate, integrates many of the most common pre-ingest activities with the power to preserve your objects in ways that are built to support ISO 16363 compliance, all in a modern and intuitive interface. Using Curate in your digital archive could greatly reduce the cost, time and resource investment required for you to build an ISO 16363 conformant system or bring an existing one closer to compliance.  You can check out our ISO 16363 Guide to find out more about how exactly Curate can help bring you closer to ISO 16363 by clicking the button below, or get in touch with us to have a chat about how we could collaborate to achieve better conformance for your digital archives. You can also try out our live demo to experience the speed and simplicity of Curate for yourself right now.