Form Digital Product Fo Digital Product Fo Digital Product Form

DIGITAL PRODUCT FORM
Introduction
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is committed to expanding public access to federally funded digital
products (e.g., digital content, resources, assets, software, and datasets). The products 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. Because technology is dynamic and because we do not want to
inhibit innovation, we do not want to prescribe set standards and practices that could become quickly outdated. Instead,
we ask that you answer questions that address specific aspects of creating and managing digital products. Like all
components of your IMLS application, 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
All applications must include a Digital Product Form.
Please check here if you have reviewed Parts I, II, III, and IV below and you have determined that your proposal
does NOT involve the creation of digital products (i.e., digital content, resources, assets, software, or datasets).
You must still submit this Digital Product Form with your proposal even if you check this box, because this Digital
Product Form is a Required Document.
If you ARE creating digital products, you must provide answers to the questions in Part I. In addition, you must also
complete at least one of the subsequent sections. If you intend to create or collect digital content, resources, or assets,
complete Part II. If you intend to develop software, complete Part III. If you intend to create a dataset, complete Part IV.

Part I: Intellectual Property Rights and Permissions
A.1 What will be the intellectual property status of the digital products (content, resources, assets, software, or datasets)
you intend to create? Who will hold the copyright(s)? How will you explain property rights and permissions to potential
users (for example, by assigning a non-restrictive license such as BSD, GNU, MIT, or Creative Commons to the product)?
Explain and justify your licensing selections.

A.2 What ownership rights will your organization assert over the new digital products and what conditions will you impose
on access and use? Explain and justify any terms of access and conditions of use and detail how you will notify potential
users about relevant terms or conditions.

A.3 If you will create any products that may involve privacy concerns, require obtaining permissions or rights, or raise any
cultural sensitivities, describe the issues and how you plan to address them.

Part II: Projects Creating or Collecting Digital Content, Resources, or Assets
A. Creating or Collecting New Digital Content, Resources, or Assets
A.1 Describe the digital content, resources, or assets you will create or collect, the quantities of each type, and the
formats you will use.
A.2 List the equipment, software, and supplies that you will use to create the content, resources, or assets, or the name of
the service provider that will perform the work.
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A.3 List all the digital file formats (e.g., XML, TIFF, MPEG) you plan to use, along with the relevant information about the
appropriate quality standards (e.g., resolution, sampling rate, or pixel dimensions).

B. Workflow and Asset Maintenance/Preservation
B.1 Describe your quality control plan. How will you 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.
Your plan may address storage systems, shared repositories, technical documentation, migration planning, and
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 C.F.R. § 200.461).

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

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

C.3 Explain what metadata sharing and/or other strategies you will use to facilitate widespread discovery and use of the
digital content, resources, or assets created during your project (e.g., an API [Application Programming Interface],
contributions to a digital platform, or other ways you might enable batch queries and retrieval of metadata).

D. Access and Use
D.1 Describe how you will make the digital content, resources, or assets 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(s) and URL(s) (Uniform Resource Locator) for any examples of previous digital content, resources,
or assets your organization has created.

Part III. Projects Developing Software
A. General Information

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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) it will serve.

A.2 List other existing software that wholly or partially performs the same functions, and explain how the software you
intend to create is different, and justify why those differences are significant and necessary.

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

B.2 Describe how the software you intend to create will extend or interoperate with relevant existing software.

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

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

B.5 Provide the name(s) and URL(s) for examples of any previous software 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 open-source
licenses to maximize access and promote reuse. What ownership rights will your organization assert over the software you
intend to create, and what conditions will you impose on its access and use? 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 and justify
any prohibitive terms or conditions of use or access and detail how you will notify potential users about relevant terms and
conditions.

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 deposit the source code for the software you intend to develop:
Name of publicly accessible source code repository:
URL:

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Part IV: Projects Creating Datasets
A.1 Identify the type of data you plan to collect or generate, and the purpose or intended use to which you expect it to be
put. Describe the method(s) you will use and the approximate dates or intervals at which you will collect or generate it.

A.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?

A.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).

A.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.

A.5 What methods 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).

A.6 What documentation (e.g., data documentation, codebooks) 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?

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

A.8 Identify where you will deposit the dataset(s):
Name of repository:
URL:
A.9 When and how frequently will you review this data management plan? How will the implementation be monitored?

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