About the Dataseal of Approval (DSA)

The Data Seal of Approval ensures that in the future, research data can still be processed in a high-quality and reliable manner, without this entailing new tresholds, regulations or high costs. The Data Seal of Approval and it's quality guidelines may be of interest to research institutions, organizations that archive data and to users of that data.

Anyone who archives his or her data would like to be able to find, recognise and use it in the future. With electronic data this can not be taken for granted, 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 documented what those requirements need to be in the 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. The guidelines may be of interest to research institutions, organizations that archive data and to users of that data. You can download the document that contains the quality guidelines of the Data Seal of Approval below.

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

Blogs about the DSA:

IASSIST: Reasearch information network:
http://iassistblog.org/?p=94 http://www.rin.ac.uk/node/499

Attachment	Size
Data_Seal_of_Approval_1-4.pdf	1.44 MB

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Terms of Use for ICPSR 04457

Please read the terms of use below. If you agree to them, click on the "Igree" button to proceed. If you do not agree, you can click on the "I Do Not Agree" button to return to the home page.

ICPSR adheres to the principles of the Data Seal of Approval, which, in part, require the data consumer to comply with access regulations imposed both by law and by the data repository; and to conform to codes of conduct that are generally accepted in higher education and scientific research for the exchange of knowledge and information.

These data are distributed under the following terms of use, which are governed by ICPSR. By continuing past this point to the data retrieval process, you signify your agreement to comply with the below-stated requirements:

Any intentional identification or disclosure of a RESEARCH SUBJECT (whether an individual or an organization) violates the PROMISE OF CONFIDENTIALITY given to the providers of the information. Therefore, users of data agree:

To use these datasets solely for statistical analysis and reporting of aggregated information, and not for investigation of specific RESEARCH SUBJECTS, except when identification is authorized in writing by ICPSR (netmail@icpsr.umich.edu )
To make no use of the identity of any RESEARCH SUBJECT discovered inadvertently, and to advise ICPSR of any such discovery (netmail@icpsr.umich.edu )

You agree not to redistribute data or other materials without the written agreement of ICPSR, unless:

You serve as the OFFICIAL or DESIGNATED REPRESENTATIVE at an ICPSR MEMBER INSTITUTION and are assisting AUTHORIZED USERS with obtaining data, or
You are collaborating with other AUTHORIZED USERS to analyze the data for research or instructional purposes.

When sharing data or other materials in these approved ways, you must include all accompanying files with the data, including terms of use. More information on permission to redistribute data can be found on the ICPSR Web site.

You agree to reference the recommended bibliographic citation in any publication that employs resources provided by ICPSR. Authors of publications based on ICPSR data are required to send citations of their published works to ICPSR for inclusion in a database of related publications (bibliography@icpsr.umich.edu) .

You acknowledge that the original collector of the data, ICPSR, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.

If ICPSR determines that the terms of this use agreement has been violated, ICPSR will act according to our policy on terms of use violations. Sanctions can include:
- ICPSR may revoke the existing agreement, demand the return of the data in question, and deny all future access to ICPSR data.
- The violation may be reported to the Research Integrity Officer, Institutional Review Board, or Human Subjects Review Committee of the user's institution. A range of sanctions are available to institutions including revocation of tenure and termination.
- If the confidentiality of human subjects has been violated, the case may be reported to the Federal Office for Human Research Protections. This may result in an investigation of the user's institution, which can result in institution-wide sanctions including the suspension of all research grants.
- A court may award the payment of damages to any individual(s)/organization(s) harmed by the breach of the agreement.
In addition, the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data stipulates the following conditions:

Federal law and regulations require that research data collected by the U.S. Department of Justice or by its grantees and contractors may only be used for statistical and research analysis. The applicable law and regulations may be found in the United States Code, 42 USC Section 3789g(a), and the Code of Federal Regulations, 28 CFR 22. Accordingly, any intentional identification or disclosure of a person or establishment may violate Federal law as well as the assurances of confidentiality given to the providers of the information. Therefore, users of data collected by or with the support from the U.S. Department of Justice and distributed by NACJD or other ICPSR archives must agree to abide by these regulations and understand that ICPSR may report any potential violation to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Source:

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/cocoon/ICPSR/TERMS/04457.xml

Data Seal of Approval acquires International Board and loses one guideline

The Data Seal of Approval developed by Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) was the theme of an international workshop in The Hague on 30 January. DANS presented its ideas for an International Board to develop the Seal further. The very first meeting of the proposed Board caused the Seal to lose one guideline - which is exactly in line with the intended purpose of the Seal: it should be a lightweight instrument to introduce data producers and archives to thinking about the quality assurances needed to secure long-term access. Further information on the Seal is to be found in the powerpoint presentation by Henk Harmsen.

Source:

http://www.ncdd.nl/en/artikel.php?id=53

Data Seal of Approval

25 February 2009

In late January 2009, Matthew Woollard, Associate Director and Head of Digital Preservation and Research, attended the inaugural board meeting for the Data Seal of Approval (DSA), in The Hague. The DSA is a short series of guidelines which lays out the responsibilities of data creators, data archivists and data users, and allows organisations responsible for the curation of data to self-assess themselves against the guidelines. It is designed as a building block towards more detailed assessment and certification in digital preservation. The DSA was originally created for research data in The Netherlands but has been shown to have greater applicability across the data archiving world.

The DSA is designed for all types of data repository and not just for the social sciences. Consequently the board is made up of representatives from: Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) - Netherlands, Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) - USA, UKDA - UK representing (mainly) the social sciences and humanities; the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (MPI), Network of Expertise in Long-term STOrage of Digital Resources (NESTOR) at the German National Library, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the Centre Informatique National de l’Enseignement Supérieur (CINES) representing other domain areas and digital object types.

At the inaugural meeting of the board, hosted by DANS - the DSA’s creators, the wording of the guidelines were refined and discussion focused on the best methods of taking the DSA forward. DANS also hosted, on the following day, a workshop on trusted digital archives for the social sciences and humanities where the DSA was discussed alongside other certification tools for trusted digital repositories. Details of the workshop, and some of the implications for the three major EU infrastructure projects of Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA), Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN) and Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH) are availabl

Source:

http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/news/newsdetail.asp?id=2183

Data Seal of Approval gaining international recognition

The data seal of approval, developed by DANS to stimulate durable storage and reuse of research data, will start operating under an international board this year. To that end, DANS will step back as manager of the seal of approval on 1 May.

The institute will be the first to submit itself to an ‘assessment’ in order to achieve the seal of approval. That process started last week. Other Dutch data institutes will soon also undergo such an inspection process, by way of a ‘pilot’. Related discussions are ongoing with various institutes and organizations.

To further broaden the support for the seal of approval within Europe, a European workshop will be organized in Luxembourg in April 2009, with participants from The Netherlands, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Meanwhile, preparations for the establishment of the Board of the Data Seal of Approval (DSA) are being made. This international board will be responsible for the assessments. Participants in the Board are, in addition to DANS, reputable international institutes such as the UK Data Archive (UKDA), the German data preservation project NESTOR, the French data institute CINES, the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen, the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and the world’s largest data archive ICPSR in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The European Commission will also be represented. The official transfer of the Data Seal of Approval by DANS to the DSA Board will take place in May 2009.

The seal of approval will guarantee to the financial sponsor of research that the data will always remain findable and will be carefully protected against ageing of software and hardware. Research organizations such as NWO require such a guarantee.

The first release of the Data Seal of Approval took place in January 2007 after thorough preparation and with input from other data institutes in Europe. The comments and suggestions received since were used to improve the seal of approval. For the Data Seal of Approval, the coming establishment of the international Board will mean a leap in the development toward an international standard in the area of durable data.