DataSpace: A Funding and Operational Model for Long-Term Preservation and Sharing of Research Data

Abstract

In this paper we propose that long-term data storage be funded by one-time payments that cover the current costs of storage, and leave enough excess funds to cover on-going replacement and management of that storage. This is made possible by the steady decline in the cost of physical data storage over time, as well as the steady increase in the amount of storage that can be managed by a given number of staff.