Form Digital Stewardshi Digital Stewardshi Digital Stewardship Form

OMB No. 3137‐0071, Exp. Date: XX/XX/XXXX 

DIGITAL STEWARDSHIP SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION FORM
Introduction
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is committed to expanding public access to federally
funded research, data, software, and other digital products. The assets you create with IMLS funding require
careful stewardship to protect and enhance their value, and they should be freely and readily available for use
and re-use by libraries, archives, museums, and the public. However, applying these principles to the
development and management of digital products is not always straightforward. Because technology is dynamic
and because we do not want to inhibit innovation, we do not want to prescribe set standards and best practices
that could become quickly outdated. Instead, we ask that you answer a series of questions that address specific
aspects of creating and managing digital assets. Your answers will be used by IMLS staff and by expert peer
reviewers to evaluate your application, and they will be important in determining whether your project will be
funded.
Instructions
If you propose to create any type of digital product as part of your project, complete this form. We define digital
products very broadly. If you are developing anything through the use of information technology (e.g., digital
collections, web resources, metadata, software, or data), you should complete this form.
Please indicate which of the following digital products you will create or collect during your project
(check all that apply):
Every proposal creating a digital product should complete …

Part I

If your project will create or collect …

Then you should complete …

Digital content

Part II

Software (systems, tools, apps, etc.)

Part III

Dataset

Part IV

PART I.
A. Intellectual Property Rights and Permissions
We expect applicants to make federally funded work products widely available and usable through strategies
such as publishing in open-access journals, depositing works in institutional or discipline-based repositories, and
using non-restrictive licenses such as a Creative Commons license.
A.1 What will be the intellectual property status of the content, software, or datasets you intend to create? Who
will hold the copyright? Will you assign a Creative Commons license (http://us.creativecommons.org) to the
content? If so, which license will it be? If it is software, what open source license will you use (e.g., BSD, GNU,
MIT)? Explain and justify your licensing selections.

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A.2 What ownership rights will your organization assert over the new digital content, software, or datasets and
what conditions will you impose on access and use? Explain any terms of access and conditions of use, why
they are justifiable, and how you will notify potential users about relevant terms or conditions.

A.3 Will you create any content or products which may involve privacy concerns, require obtaining permissions
or rights, or raise any cultural sensitivities? If so, please describe the issues and how you plan to address them.

Part II: Projects Creating or Collecting Digital Content
A. Creating New Digital Content
A.1 Describe the digital content you will create and/or collect, the quantities of each type, and format you will
use.

A.2 List the equipment, software, and supplies that you will use to create the content or the name of the service
provider who will perform the work.

A.3 List all the digital file formats (e.g., XML, TIFF, MPEG) you plan to create, along with the relevant
information on the appropriate quality standards (e.g., resolution, sampling rate, or pixel dimensions).

B. Digital Workflow and Asset Maintenance/Preservation
B.1 Describe your quality control plan (i.e., how you will monitor and evaluate your workflow and products).

B.2 Describe your plan for preserving and maintaining digital assets during and after the award period of
performance (e.g., storage systems, shared repositories, technical documentation, migration planning,
commitment of organizational funding for these purposes). Please note: You may charge the Federal award
before closeout for the costs of publication or sharing of research results if the costs are not incurred during the
period of performance of the Federal award. (see 2 CFR 200.461).

C. Metadata
C.1 Describe how you will produce metadata (e.g., technical, descriptive, administrative, or preservation).
Specify which standards you will use for the metadata structure (e.g., MARC, Dublin Core, Encoded Archival
Description, PBCore, or PREMIS) and metadata content (e.g., thesauri).

C.2 Explain your strategy for preserving and maintaining metadata created and/or collected during and after the
award period of performance.

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C.3 Explain what metadata sharing and/or other strategies you will use to facilitate widespread discovery and
use of digital content created during your project (e.g., an API (Application Programming Interface),
contributions to the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) or other digital platform, or other support to allow
batch queries and retrieval of metadata).

D. Access and Use
D.1 Describe how you will make the digital content available to the public. Include details such as the delivery
strategy (e.g., openly available online, available to specified audiences) and underlying hardware/software
platforms and infrastructure (e.g., specific digital repository software or leased services, accessibility via
standard web browsers, requirements for special software tools in order to use the content).

D.2 Provide the name and URL(s) (Uniform Resource Locator) for any examples of previous digital collections
or content your organization has created.

Part III. Projects Creating Software (systems, tools, apps, etc.)
A. General Information
A.1 Describe the software you intend to create, including a summary of the major functions it will perform and
the intended primary audience(s) this software will serve.

A.2 List other existing software that wholly or partially perform the same functions, and explain how the tool or
system you will create is different.

B. Technical Information 
B.1 List the programming languages, platforms, software, or other applications you will use to create your
software (systems, tools, apps, etc.) and explain why you chose them.

B.2 Describe how the intended software will extend or interoperate with other existing software.

B.3 Describe any underlying additional software or system dependencies necessary to run the new software
you will create.

B.4 Describe the processes you will use for development documentation and for maintaining and updating
technical documentation for users of the software.

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B.5 Provide the name and URL(s) for examples of any previous software tools or systems your organization has
created.

C. Access and Use 
C.1 We expect applicants seeking federal funds for software to develop and release these products under an
open-source license to maximize access and promote reuse. What ownership rights will your organization
assert over the software created, and what conditions will you impose on the access and use of this product?
Identify and explain the license under which you will release source code for the software you develop (e.g.,
BSD, GNU, or MIT software licenses). Explain any prohibitive terms or conditions of use or access, explain why
these terms or conditions are justifiable, and explain how you will notify potential users of the software or
system.

C.2 Describe how you will make the software and source code available to the public and/or its intended users.
C.3 Identify where you will be publicly depositing source code for the software developed:
Name of publicly accessible source code repository:
URL:

Part IV. Projects Creating a Dataset
1. Summarize the intended purpose of this data, the type of data to be collected or generated, the method for
collection or generation, the approximate dates or frequency when the data will be generated or collected, and
the intended use of the data collected.

2. Does the proposed data collection or research activity require approval by any internal review panel or
institutional review board (IRB)? If so, has the proposed research activity been approved? If not, what is your
plan for securing approval?

3. Will you collect any personally identifiable information (PII), confidential information (e.g., trade secrets), or
proprietary information? If so, detail the specific steps you will take to protect such information while you prepare
the data files for public release (e.g., data anonymization, data suppression PII, or synthetic data).

4. If you will collect additional documentation such as consent agreements along with the data, describe plans
for preserving the documentation and ensuring that its relationship to the collected data is maintained.

5. What will you use to collect or generate the data? Provide details about any technical requirements or
dependencies that would be necessary for understanding, retrieving, displaying, or processing the dataset(s).

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6. What documentation (e.g., data documentation, codebooks, etc.) will you capture or create along with the
dataset(s)? Where will the documentation be stored, and in what format(s)? How will you permanently associate
and manage the documentation with the dataset(s) it describes?

7. What is the plan for archiving, managing, and disseminating data after the completion of the award-funded
project?

8. Identify where you will be publicly depositing dataset(s):
Name of repository:
URL:

9. When and how frequently will you review this data management plan? How will the implementation be
monitored?

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