The Data Seal of Approval

The Data Seal of Approval was established by a number of institutions committed to durability in the archiving of research data. By assigning the seal, they not only wish to guarantee the durability of the data concerned, but also to promote the goal of durable archiving in general.

The DSA Assessment

How may a repository acquire the Data Seal of Approval (DSA) from the Data Seal of Approval Board (DSA Board)?
Achieving the DSA means that the data concerned have been subjected to the sixteen guidelines of which the assessment procedure consists. The repository will be permitted to display the DSA logo on its homepage and in other locations relevant to its communication in the realm of scientific and scholarly research.

Although the sixteen guidelines regard three stakeholders – the data producer (three guidelines), the data consumer (three guidelines) and the data archive (ten guidelines) – the data arhive is seen as the main organization responsible for the repository. The data archive as an organization should take care of the overall implementation of the DSA in its own specific field.

An organization that merely provides access to data and does not do any archiving in its own repository, can achieve the DSA logo with regard to certain repositories, provided it regularly does the following:
·         Take care of the implementation of all the DSA guidelines except 4,6,7,8 and 13;
·         Store a copy of the data in another Trusted Digital Repository (TDR) that has acquired the DSA logo by implementing each of the sixteen guidelines (including 4, 6, 7, 8 and 13).

Procedure
In order to acquire the Data Seal of Approval, the TDR is obliged to keep a file directory on the web that is accessible through the homepage of the repository. This so-called assessment directory contains:

1.   An up-to-date version of the Data Seal of Approval handbook (datasealofapproval.pdf);
2.   The information leaflet about the Data Seal of Approval Assessment (DSA infomation folder.pdf);
3.   The Data Seal of Approval Assessment (DSAA.pdf)

The DSA Assessment completed by the repository is the starting point for the review procedure, carried out by the DSA Board in order to decide whether or not an organization will be granted the Data Seal of Approval. There will be no audit, no certification: just a review on the basis of trust.

The DSA Assessment document contains a guide to facilitate completion of the assessment, the assessment itself and a modification record:

• The assessment lists the sixteen Data Seal of Approval guidelines. The organization describes how these guidelines are related to the repository and how they have been implemented. It reflects the current situation of the repository.
• In the modification record, every modification made to the assessment is recorded. If information has changed, the organization will inform the DSA Board by e-mail (info@datasealofapproval.org).  

The DSA logo will be displayed on the homepage of the repository by means of HTML code, which the organization will receive from the DSA Board. It contains a link to www.datasealofapproval.org as well as a link to the organizations' repository assessment directory.

The DSA Board will place a link pointing to the repository on the web site datasealofapproval.org, using the logo of the specific repository or the name of the repository in combination with the logo of the hosting organization.

The Hague, 16 October 2009

Henk Harmsen
Data Seal of Approval Board