News | Data Seal of Approval

Memorandum of Understanding on Standards for Trusted Digital Repositories

On July 8, 2010 a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between three groups which are working on standards for Trusted Digital Repositories being David Giaretta in his capacity as chair of the CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems)/ISO Repository Audit and Certification Working Group (RAC), Henk Harmsen in his capacity as Chair of the Data Seal of Approval (DSA) Board and Christian Keitel in his capacity as Chair of the DIN Working Group "Trustworthy Archives – Certification" .

The MoU was signed as part of a series of EC sponsored initiatives on the audit and certification of trusted repositories, in which a number of European archives including the Landesarchiv Baden Württemberg, DANS and the UKDA are playing a role. The EC have been hugely supportive of this initiative and will be examining the results of at least three trial audits against the DSA and DIN/ISO standards early next year.

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A new code of conduct for researchers

22. July 2010 00:05

A new European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity is presented today by the European Science Foundation at the World Conference on Research Integrity. The code addresses good practice and bad conduct in science, offering a basis for trust and integrity across national borders.

This Europe-wide code offers a reference point for all researchers, complementing existing codes of ethics and complying with national and European legislative frameworks. It is not intended to replace existing national or academic guidelines, but represents agreement across 30 countries on a set of principles and priorities for self-regulation of the research community. It provides a possible model for a global code of conduct for all research.

“Science is an international enterprise with researchers continually working with colleagues in other countries. The scientists involved need to understand that they share a common set of standards. There can be no first-class research without integrity,” said Marja Makarow, Chief Executive of the European Science Foundation. “Researchers build on each other’s results so they must be honest with themselves, and with each other, and share the same standards of fairness, which makes the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity a vital document."

The code describes the proper conduct and principled practice of systematic research in the natural and social sciences and the humanities. Research misconduct is quite rare, but just one extraordinary case can endanger the reputation of a university, a research community or even the reputation of science itself. One well-publicised allegation of research dishonesty or malpractice can call to question the efforts of thousands of scientists and decades of research effort. Europe has experienced several well publicised cases recently at, for example, the University of East Anglia in the UK, and at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

The term ‘research misconduct’ embraces many things, including insufficient care for the people, animals or objects that are the subject of or participants in research; breaches of confidentiality, violation of protocols, carelessness of the kind that leads to gross error and improprieties of publication involving conflict of interest or appropriation of ideas. Many of these unacceptable research practices are addressed in the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.

The code was developed from meetings and workshops involving the European Science Foundation (ESF) Member Organisations who are 79 national funding bodies, research-performing agencies, academies and learned societies from 30 countries. They worked with the All European Academies (ALLEA). The next steps in implementing the code will be discussed in the autumn by ESF Member Organisations.

The code is published in the report Fostering Research Integrity in Europe which is available online www.esf.org/publications

Notes to Editors
The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity will be presented 22 July, 16:30 - 18:00 during the session titled “Developing National and International Research Integrity Structures”
More information about the conference is available online www.wcri2010.org

For more information or to request an interview please contact Chloe Kembery, ESF press officer
media@esf.org Tel +33 (0) 388-762-158 Cell +33 (0) 643-172-382

The European Science Foundation (ESF) is an independent, non-governmental organisation that promotes collaboration in scientific research, funding of research and science policy across Europe. Established in 1974, it represents 79 national funding bodies, research-performing agencies, academies and learned societies from 30 countries. It creates a common platform for cross-border cooperation in Europe and made major contributions to science globally.

Source:

http://www.esf.org/media-centre/press-releases/ext-single-news.html?tx_ttnews[tt...

IASST-L IHSN: Principles and Good Practice for Preserving Data

19 June 2010

The International Household Survey Network just released a new publication on “Principles and Good Practice for Preserving Data”. This document produced by the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social research (ICPSR) provides basic guidance for managers in statistical agencies who are responsible for preserving data using the principles and good practice defined by the digital preservation community. The guidance defines the rationale for preserving data and the principles and standards of good practice as applied to data preservation; documents the development of a digital preservation policy; and uses digital archive audit principles to suggest good practice for data.

The document is available at http://ihsn.org/home/index.php?q=focus/principles-and-good-practice-pres...

Pascal Heus

TRACking the Evidence: ICPSR Begins Self-Assessment

15 July 2010

In the Spring of 2010, ICPSR began a self-assessment exercise to document evidence for meeting the requirements of the Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification (TRAC) checklist. The requirements fell under these major headings[1]:

Process

Guided by ICPSR Digital Preservation Officer Nancy McGovern, we listed each TRAC requirement on its own page on the ICPSR Intranet. Groups at ICPSR were then assigned responsibility to document these requirements on the Intranet pages. For example, the ICPSR Dissemination Committee, which I chair, was given responsibility to document the requirements related to access. The groups were then directed to rate the level of compliance with each requirement on a rating system from 0 to 4:

0=non-compliant

1=slightly compliant

2=half compliant

3=mostly compliant

4=fully compliant

Findings

The Dissemination Committee recognized early in the process that ICPSR needed an explicit Access Policy in order to comply with several of the TRAC requirements, so our group drafted such a policy, which was subsequently approved and posted. This was a good outcome as it creates greater transparency for the ICPSR repository in terms of how it grants access to data and other products.

Of the 12 requirements for which the Dissemination Committee is assembling evidence, most have received a rating of about a 3, or “mostly compliant.” The TRAC criteria are demanding and we know that the organization has a ways to go to be fully compliant with the requirements.

We are still in the process of understanding ICPSR’s level of compliance across the organization and there will be a full discussion of TRAC at the next meeting of the ICPSR Council in October 2010. ICPSR hopes to provide a report to the community on its experience with TRAC, its findings, and future directions.

Mary Vardigan (ICPSR)

[1] Note that these requirements reflect the public TRAC version in use at the time, pending the ISO version, but we will ultimately align with the ISO version.

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 available

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.