NARA Risk Matrix Proposed Updates

[Hannah Wang]

Hello PRONOM community,

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Digital Preservation Unit is seeking input and feedback on proposed updates to the NARA Risk and Prioritization Matrix. NARA uses the Risk Matrix to measure the preservation risk of digital file formats in our holdings and to assess formats we anticipate receiving in the future. By answering questions related to the ability to preserve and sustain a file format, we identify relative risk levels.

This year, we are undertaking a comprehensive review and revision of the Risk Matrix to make it more standardized, scalable, and better aligned with our current practices. We are proposing updates to many of the questions and question categories that we use to evaluate file format risk.

We would greatly appreciate feedback on this document (available on GitHub as a PDF or Word document) and the accompanying spreadsheet with examples. This period of community review will be followed by final updates and an extensive rescoring process that will result in an updated version of the Risk Matrix in Fall 2024.

The documents for review can be found on GitHub. Please submit feedback by Monday, May 20. You can send feedback to the team at digital-pr...@nara.gov or as a GitHub issue.

Please reach out to me at hanna...@nara.gov with any questions. I have another meeting during the PRONOM drop-in call tomorrow, but I will try to attend the first 10 minutes or so to see if anyone has questions about this project.

Thanks!
Hannah

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Hannah Wang (she/her)

Senior Digital Preservation Specialist

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

hanna...@nara.gov