A-16 Supplemental Guidance

Data Lifecycle Stages

Develop a written policy for data disposal in accordance with NARA requirements; NARA is mandated to archive for all agencies

o Review requirements for archiving information

 Records management practices established in the Federal Records Act
 36 CFR 1200
 FGDC requirements
 Agency requirements

o Archive both internally in the organization responsible for the data (offline storage) and externally (snapshot transfers)

o Provide time-stamped versions of copies of data to NARA for long-term preservation in a sustainable format

o Work in conjunction with agency IT and records officers to create and implement an archival plan

o Identify business needs for archiving:

 Isolate datasets to archive; decide whether archived datasets will be composed of the entire dataset each time or subsets of the data

• Review business requirements and business needs identified in the first stage (Define) of the data lifecycle
• Review plans to obtain and maintain data as established in the third (Obtain) and fifth (Maintain) stages of the data lifecycle

 Identify available funding and resources
 Develop a method for transferring permanent data to NARA
 Dispose of data identified (tied to the plan developed in the Maintain stage)

o Determine technical requirements including:

 Create data schema to accompany transfer
 Select sustainable format to store data in (tied into original decision about data in the Obtain stage)
 Establish preservation procedures
 Sample to make sure that the data are readable