Ithaka is a nonprofit organization that helps the academic community preserve scholarly works through digital technologies. One of Ithaka's services is Portico, which digitally preserves journals, books, and other electronic content to ensure future access. Portico maintains agreements with publishers to archive content and makes it available if the publisher ceases operations or discontinues a title. The document discusses challenges around preserving massive open online courses (MOOCs) and online learning materials, including questions around what should be preserved, what can be preserved given rights issues, who is the intended user community, and who is responsible for long-term preservation.

1. ANOTHER PRESERVATION CHALLENGE
MOOC and Online
Learning Materials for
Posterity

2. ITHAKA
OUR MISSION
ITHAKA is a not-for-profit organization that helps the
academic community use digital technologies to preserve
the scholarly record and to advance research and
teaching in sustainable ways.
We pursue this mission by providing three innovative services that
aid in the adoption of these technologies and create lasting impact:
JSTOR, Portico, and Ithaka S+R.

3. Portico is committed to the preservation of
scholarly literature published in electronic
form to ensure that these materials remain
accessible to future generations of scholars,
researchers, and students.

4. WHAT WE DO
Portico is a digital preservation service for e-journals,
e-books, and other electronic content
It was started by JSTOR in 2005 with funding from the Library of Congress
and the Andrew Mellon Foundation.
Portico is based on collaboration between libraries and publishers.
How It Works
We maintain archiving agreements with publishers to collect and preserve
content.
We receive content directly from the publishers. This content is held in a
“dark archive”: it is stored until a specific event occurs that causes content to
become accessible.

5. PORTICO’S SERVICES
E-JOURNAL
PRESERVATION SERVICE
E-BOOK
PRESERVATION SERVICE
D-COLLECTION
PRESERVATION SERVICE
PUBLISHER & LIBRARY FEES PUBLISHER FEES, NO LIBRARY FEE

6. TRIGGERS
We make content available under certain
circumstances:
• Publisher ceases operation
• Publisher discontinues a title
• Publisher drops a back file
Libraries don’t have to worry about whether their
content exist for future generations.

7. CONTENT
MANAGEMENT
ACTIVITIES
Portico provides preservation at the far end of the scale.
We manage the content in our care very closely. The primary
preservation methodology is migration—transitioning content
from one file format to another as technology evolves.
NO ACTION BACKUP BYTE
REPLICATION
FULL MANAGED
PRESERVATION

8. Digital preservation is the series of
management policies and activities
necessary to ensure the enduring
usability
authenticity
discoverability
accessibility
of content over the very long-term.

9. MOOCS AND ONLINE
LEARNING MATERIALS
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Questions for thought
» What should and shouldn’t be preserved?
» What can be preserved?
» Who is the designated user community?
» Who should be doing the preserving?

10. WHAT SHOULD AND SHOULDN’T
BE PRESERVED?
Canonical version of the course
Lecture materials
Readings
Discussion questions
Other resources
Every instance of the course
Each is unique
Capture student interactions
What about course work?

11. WHAT CAN BE PRESERVED?
Rights/licensing issues
Content will not all have the same
owner
Licenses may not include ability to
preserve
Privacy issues (student generated
content)
Format challenges
Large variety of formats
Unique format types
Can’t preserve streaming
Metadata not inherent

12. WHO IS THE DESIGNATED USER
COMMUNITY?
Hosting institution
Anyone who took the course
The world at large
Who are the beneficiaries of the
preservation? (who will have the
right to access the content and for
what purpose)

13. WHO SHOULD BE DOING THE
PRESERVING?
Libraries on behalf of the institution
Third-party preservation services
Platforms (Coursera, EdX, Udacity, etc.)
Collaboration among some or all of the above

14. www.portico.org
THANK YOU!
STEPHANIE ORPHAN
DIRECTOR OF PUBLISHER RELATIONS
PORTICO
stephanie.orphan@ithaka.org