The repository shall have mechanisms for review, update, and ongoing development of its Preservation Policies as the repository grows and as technology and community practice evolve.

This is necessary in order that the repository has up-to-date, complete policies and procedures in place that reflect the current requirements and practices of its community(ies) for preservation.

Current and past written documentation in the form of Preservation Policies, Preservation Strategic Plans and Preservation Implementation Plans, procedures, protocols, and workflows; specifications of review cycles for documentation; documentation detailing reviews, surveys and feedback. If documentation is embedded in system logic, functionality should demonstrate the implementation of policies and procedures.

Preservation Policies capture organizational commitments and intents for staffing, security and other preservation-related concerns. Preservation Implementation Plans address preservation activities and practices such as transfer, submission, quality control, storage management, metadata management, and access and rights management. The repository may find it beneficial to maintain all versions of the preservation policies (e.g., outdated versions are clearly identified and maintained in some organized way) in order to document the results of monitoring for new developments, showing the repository’s responsiveness to prevailing standards and practice, emerging requirements, and standards that are specific to the domain, if appropriate, and similar developments. Qualified staff and peers are an important part of the review process, as they help to update and expand these documents. The policies should be understandable by the repository staff in order for them to carry out their work. Preservation Policies and procedures must be demonstrated to be understandable and implementable.

The Policy Management Policy describes the development, implementation, approval, management, and maintenance of APTrust policies and guidelines. Furthermore, each policy includes a version history, tracking changes, and linking previous versions. See an example of the Review and Version History sections in each policy below.