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The Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model was by an international group that was convened by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) on which the versions of ISO 14721 (2003, 2012, and pending 2024) are based. As specified in the document, the purpose of OAIS is to:

• raise understanding, awareness, consensus about the concepts, roles, functions, and practice of digital archives and digital preservation;

• enable effective participation by the community in engaging in the effective and long-term management of digital content;

• describe and compare:

  • architectures and operations – to enable common development, e.g. share workflows

  • preservation strategies and techniques – to develop common practice and share tools

• understand digital information data models – to develop a shared understanding of the states of digital content during the lifecycle at submission (SIP), for preservation (AIP), and for access (DIP), and to devise approaches to preserve specific content-types; and

• guide growth of OAIS-related standards

OAIS includes a standards road map (section 1.5) that acknowledges the need for a family of OAIS standards that address submission methods (PAIMAS and PAIS), preservation metadata (PREMIS), certification (ISO 16363), and persistent identifiers (not yet a standard).