2. Data Curation Continua
The Monash University Information Management Strategy adopted a multidimensional
view of information. This approach was informed by a body of
theoretical work developed by researchers in the School of Information Management
and Systems at Monash. They developed the notion of an information continuum,
based on a multiple-axis analysis of the various characteristics of information in
organisations (Schauder, et al. 2004). These information management dimensions
were largely determined to have particular values.
An analysis of the research data management space suggested that it is not
appropriate to identify specific values along each dimension. Instead, it was decided
to have continua that graduated between two endpoints. This analysis was based on
user requirements from within Monash University, a literature review, the use-case
work undertaken in the DART project, and the results of the work undertaken to
clarify ANDS (DEST 2007b). The reason for calling these curation continua was that
they all deal with things that the curation domain needs to address: object properties,
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management decisions and access constraints. The term !curation" in this paper is
used in accordance with the definition used by the Digital Curation Centre:
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/. Table 1 summarises the Data Curation Continua identified so
far.