EOSC EDEN – M1.2 Report on Metrics for Information Object Re-Use Fitness: Design, Guidance and Summary of Findings

This report documents EOSC EDEN ("Enhancing Digital preservation strategies at European and National level") Milestone 1.2 "Metrics for Information Object Re-Use Fitness" by EOSC EDEN WP1 T1.2.

The work is structured around the three quality pillars of the Re‑Use Fitness Model, which provide overarching, organisation‑agnostic categories. The Re-Use Fitness Model defines three data quality pillars - content data quality, technical data quality and metadata quality. For each pillar a first set of baseline quality indicators was derived from ISO 25012, which were then refined and significantly expanded through systematic comparison with institutional policies, expert input and relevant standards, ensuring transparency and traceability. The report includes:

• 33 Content Data Quality (CDQ) indicators
• 28 Technical Data Quality (TDQ) indicators
• 13 Metadata Quality (MDQ) indicators

Metrics are concrete, domain‑specific measurements that operationalise these indicators; at present they are drawn from existing policy and process documents (e.g., CoreTrustSeal certifications, collection‑development policies) and serve as candidate metrics for further validation. Candidate metrics have been extracted from different documentation sources and a total of 618 (403 generic, 215 data-specific) are reported in a spreadsheet  Please note that the EDEN project does not officially endorse these requirements, the responsibility for their content remains with the institution that issued them.

The initial catalogue of indicators and extracted metrics will be iteratively refined.

Work on the Metrics for Information Object Re-Use Fitness is building on underlying notions of appraisal and of data quality:

• We understand appraisal as a function that every Trustworthy Digital Archive (TDA) undertakes to decide whether digital objects will be accepted into its holdings or not. During appraisal the TDA evaluates the qualities of potential deposits by assessing their characteristics against a set of indicators that should be made transparent in the form of a written policy. The outcome of this evaluation provides evidence on the expected level of investment in the retention, curation and active long-term preservation of digital objects, and guides acquisition, transfer, and ingest. Reappraisal may be performed throughout a digital object’s lifecycle and as retention periods expire, leading to digital objects being passed through the appraisal function again.
• We understand data quality as "the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics of data fulfils requirements". These characteristics of digital objects may affact their usability and preservability - as well as their usefulness, discoverability etc. in the context of appraisal.

This publication contains the following parts:

• M1.2 Report on Metrics for Information Object Re-Use Fitness: Design, Guidance and Summary of Findings (EOSC_EDEN_M1-2_Report.pdf)
• M1.2 Spreadsheet of sources for extracted requirements (EOSC_EDEN_M1-2_sources.xslx)
• M1.2 Spreadsheet of extracted requirements as candidate metrics (EOSC_EDEN_M1-2_candidate-metrics.xslx)