1. Self-Hosting

Again, it is always best to start locally since you know your community’s needs best. If your community, TCU, or organization has an IT structure in place that can manage the capacity to store large amounts of language data, this is a good place to begin. If they do not, are you able to work with them to build capacity or resources to support your project?

In terms of electronic materials, there's always a push-me pull-you tension between hosting things locally in an IT shop (or using cloud-based services) and the decisions and potential contracts involved are tricky. There is really no substitute for having a professionally administered IT shop on board to ensure top-quality safe storage for electronic resources, if you can manage it.

2. Tribal IT Infrastructure

The next best step is possibly working with tribal IT. Concerns or questions here are similar to Self-Hosting in that you need to assure they have capacity or you are able to partner with them to build capacity.

3. Other Colleges or Universities

If your TCU, organization, or community does not have capacity, you might be able to partner with an outside college or university. External institutions may be interested in supporting your project. When exploring external collaborations, it is always recommended to create a memorandum of understanding to ensure that the collaboration goes smoothly.

4. Language Archives

Digitized versions of language materials can also be stored in special use 'language archives', as described earlier. The language documentation community has developed two sets of recommended external archives that are managed in ways consistent with the principles of data sovereignty we've discussed – the DELEMAN group, and archives with the Core Trust Seal.

The Core Trust Seal is an international organization that offers core-level certification for trustworthy data repositories. The certification assesses an organization’s data infrastructure against 16 criteria across 3 categories: organization infrastructure, digital object management, and information technology & security.

DELEMAN, an acronym for Digital Endangered Languages and Music Archives Network works to support the ethical preservation and archiving of materials by creating a collaborative international forum for archives to share technologies, policies, and practices. DELEMAN promotes access to archival materials for originating communities and researchers, and advocates for the ethical use of digital technologies to ensure the long-term sustainability and visibility of these precious cultural resources.

There are a number of open language archives that can support at least some needs for electronic data management for language work. These archives have excellent data management infrastructure to ensure safe storage. They are also typically designed to allow eligible individuals to 'check out' or download materials through appropriate access measures that have been established. However, they don't generally support development and dissemination of electronic resources.