Summary of cost models
What are the available cost models?
Several cost models exist, and you will need to judge which offers the best fit for your organisation's needs. The following set of ten current and emerging cost and benefit models illustrate the range of options available to you.
- CDL-TCP
- Total Cost of Preservation
- CMDA
- Cost Model for Digital Archiving
- CMDP
- Cost Model for Digital Preservation
- DP4lib
- DP4lib Cost Model
- EMLTS
- Economic Model for Long-Term Storage
- KRDS
- Keeping Research Data Safe
- LIFE3
- LIFE3 Costing Model
- NASA-CET
- NASA Cost Estimating Tool
- PP-CMDS
- PrestoPRIME Cost Model for Digital Storage
- T-CMDP
- Test bed Cost Model for Digital Preservation
What should I look for?
Each of these ten cost models has been mapped against a set of criteria to make it easier for you to judge which might best meet your particular requirements. We've looked at the range of information assets that the model can handle, which activities they cover, and which cost elements and variables they account for. We've also grouped the criteria into the following five broad categories so you can see at a glance which features might matter most to you.
- Model type - does the model cover past and future costs, activities, benefits?
- Resource breakdown - does the model cover direct and indirect costs?
- Activity breakdown - does the model break down all activities by type?
- Adjustments - does the model allow you to account for volume and complexity of assets?
- Usability - what sort of learning curve is required to use the model?
How do the models compare?
Click on the category of criteria that interests you to reveal a more detailed evaluation, and/or on the model name for a short description of the model including its key features. Models that we consider to satisfy a given criteron are indicated by ; those that we consider do not satisfy a given criterion are indicated by ; those for which we could reach no clear conclusion for a given criterion during this review period are indicated by .
| Criteria | CDL-TCP | CMDA | CMDP | DP4lib | EMLTS | KRDS | LIFE3 | NASA-CET | PP-CMDS | T-CMDP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Model type |
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| Accounts for the economic lifecycle of digital curation | ||||||||||
| Accounts for benefits and value | ||||||||||
| Includes activity checklist | ||||||||||
Resource breakdown |
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| Accounts for capital costs | ||||||||||
| Accounts for indirect costs | ||||||||||
Activity breakdown |
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| Is based on a widely-used/standardised structure | ||||||||||
| Is based on a custom structure | ||||||||||
| Breaks down cost by amount of assets | ||||||||||
| Is based on OAIS entities | ||||||||||
| Covers pre-ingest functions | ||||||||||
Adjustments |
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| Allows for specifying the number of assets | ||||||||||
| Allows for specifying upload/download amount and frequency | ||||||||||
| Handles simple data formats | ||||||||||
| Handles complex data formats | ||||||||||
| Handles preservation strategies based on migration | ||||||||||
| Allows structured specification of the quality of individual activities | ||||||||||
| Allows structured specification of repository quality | ||||||||||
Usability |
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| Has repository managers or preservation specialists as the intended users | ||||||||||
| Is well documented | ||||||||||
| Can be learned by users in less than a day | ||||||||||
| Can be learned by users in less than a week | ||||||||||
| Enables users to generate results within half a day | ||||||||||
| Is implemented in a spreadsheet | ||||||||||
| Is implemented in a Web application | ||||||||||
| Has a graphical user interface | ||||||||||
| Is modular | ||||||||||
| Provides default data | ||||||||||
| Allows parameters and values to be changed | ||||||||||
| Provides multiple sets of default values for different use cases |
Not sure yet which model best meets your needs?
Check out our detailed evaluation of these models against an expanded set of 78 assessment criteria to help you make your decision.
Next steps
Now you have worked through the summary of available cost models, continue with our advice on using cost models to describe your curation-related costs.
