Anyone who archives his or her data also would like them to be found, recognized and still usable in the future. That is not a matter of course with electronic data. After all, hardware and software are changing all the time. Making data future-proof can be accomplished by ensuring that data sets and metadata meet certain requirements. In consultation with large data producers and managers, DANS laid down what those requirements need to be in its Datakeurmerk (Data Seal of Approval), which will continue to be developed further.

The quality guidelines of this seal of approval for data are intended to ensure that in the future, research data can still be processed in a high-quality and reliable manner, without this entailing new thresholds, regulations or high costs. They may be of interest to research institutions, to organizations that archive data, and to users of those data. The document that lays down the quality guidelines of the Datakeurmerk, can be downloaded here.

Contact at DANS: Dr. Henk Harmsen henk.harmsen at dans.knaw.nl

DANS is presenting a paper on Data Seal of Approval at the IASSIST 2008 conference