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 digital
products that are created using federal funds. This includes (1) digitized and born-digital content,
resources, or assets; (2) software; and (3) research data (see below for more specific examples).
Excluded are preliminary analyses, drafts of papers, plans for future research, peer-review assessments,
and communications with colleagues.
The digital products you create with IMLS funding require effective stewardship to protect and enhance
their value, and they should be freely and readily available for use and reuse 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outdated.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
If you propose to create digital products in the course of your IMLS-funded project, you must first
provide answers to the questions in SECTION I: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND
PERMISSIONS. Then consider which of the following types of digital products you will create in your
project, and complete each section of the form that is applicable.
SECTION II: DIGITAL CONTENT, RESOURCES, OR ASSETS
Complete this section if your project will create digital content, resources, or assets. These
include both digitized and born-digital products created by individuals, project teams, or
through community gatherings during your project. Examples include, but are not limited to,
still images, audio files, moving images, microfilm, object inventories, object catalogs,
artworks, books, posters, curricula, field books, maps, notebooks, scientific labels, metadata
schema, charts, tables, drawings, workflows, and teacher toolkits. Your project may involve
making these materials available through public or access-controlled websites, kiosks, or live
or recorded programs.
SECTION III: SOFTWARE
Complete this section if your project will create software, including any source code,
algorithms, applications, and digital tools plus the accompanying documentation created by
you during your project.
SECTION IV: RESEARCH DATA
Complete this section if your project will create research data, including recorded factual
information and supporting documentation, commonly accepted as relevant to validating
research findings and to supporting scholarly publications.

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SECTION I: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS
A.1 We expect applicants seeking federal funds for developing or creating digital products to release
these files under open-source licenses to maximize access and promote reuse. What will be the
intellectual property status of the digital products (i.e., digital content, resources, or assets; software;
research data) you intend to create? What ownership rights will your organization assert over the files
you intend to create, and what conditions will you impose on their access and use? Who will hold the
copyright(s)? Explain and justify your licensing selections. Identify and explain the license under which
you will release the files (e.g., a non-restrictive license such as BSD, GNU, MIT, Creative Commons
licenses; RightsStatements.org statements). 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.

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.

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SECTION II: 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 format(s) you will use.

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

A.3 List all the digital file formats (e.g., XML, TIFF, MPEG, OBJ, DOC, PDF) you plan to use. If
digitizing content, describe the quality standards (e.g., resolution, sampling rate, pixel dimensions)
you will use for the files you will create.

Workflow and Asset Maintenance/Preservation
B.1 Describe your quality control plan. How will you monitor and evaluate your workflow and products?

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B.2 Describe your plan for preserving and maintaining digital assets during and after the award period.
Your plan should 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).

Metadata
C.1 Describe how you will produce any and all technical, descriptive, administrative, or preservation
metadata or linked data. Specify which standards or data models you will use for the metadata
structure (e.g., RDF, BIBFRAME, 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.

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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).

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, delivery enabled by IIIF specifications).

D.2. Provide the name(s) and URL(s) (Universal Resource Locator), DOI (Digital Object Identifier), or
other persistent identifier for any examples of previous digital content, resources, or assets your
organization has created.

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SECTION III: SOFTWARE
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) it will serve.

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

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

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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), URL(s), and/or code repository locations for examples of any previous
software your organization has created.

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Access and Use
C.1 Describe how you will make the software and source code available to the public and/or its intended
users.

C.2 Identify where you will deposit the source code for the software you intend to develop:
Name of publicly accessible source code repository:

URL:

SECTION IV: RESEARCH DATA
As part of the federal government’s commitment to increase access to federally funded research data,
Section IV represents the Data Management Plan (DMP) for research proposals and should reflect data
management, dissemination, and preservation best practices in the applicant’s area of research
appropriate to the data that the project will generate.
A.1 Identify the type(s) of data you plan to collect or generate, and the purpose or intended use(s) to
which you expect them to be put. Describe the method(s) you will use, the proposed scope and scale,
and the approximate dates or intervals at which you will collect or generate data.

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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 sensitive information? This may include personally identifiable information
(PII), confidential information (e.g., trade secrets), or proprietary information. If so, detail the specific
steps you will take to protect the information while you prepare it for public release (e.g., anonymizing
individual identifiers, data aggregation). If the data will not be released publicly, explain why the data
cannot be shared due to the protection of privacy, confidentiality, security, intellectual property, and
other rights or requirements.

A.4 What technical (hardware and/or software) requirements or dependencies would be necessary for
understanding retrieving, displaying, processing, or otherwise reusing the data?

A.5 What documentation (e.g., consent agreements, data documentation, codebooks, metadata, and
analytical and procedural information) will you capture or create along with the data? Where will the
documentation be stored and in what format(s)? How will you permanently associate and manage the
documentation with the data it describes to enable future reuse?

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A.6 What is your plan for managing, disseminating, and preserving data after the completion of the
award-funded project?

A.7 Identify where you will deposit the data:
Name of repository:

URL:

A.8 When and how frequently will you review this data management plan? How will the
implementation be monitored?

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