Towards Trusted Digital Archives for Social Science and Humanities Data

 
This workshop was held in connection with:
 
    Digital Preservation Europe (DPE)
    Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA)
    Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH)
    Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN)
    Data Seal of Approval Assessment – International Board (DSAA IB)
 
Convenors were Kevin Schürer (UKDA) and Peter Doorn (DANS, The Netherlands).
 

The workshop was focused on guaranteeing the quality and trustworthiness of digital archives for research data, in particular in the social sciences and humanities. Over the past few years various initiatives have been attempted to formulate guidelines and/or best practices for “trusted digital repository”, such as DRAMBORA, TRAC, NESTOR and the Data Seal of Approval (DSA). Central issue of the workshop was the applicability of these guidelines in the social sciences and humanities. What is needed to accomplish trusted digital archives and do the now existing guidelines fulfil that need? Which issues are still missing? And how do we implement the guidelines?

In this workshop the seventeen DSA guidelines, which are specifically designed for data archives in the humanities and social sciences, have been taken as a starting point for the discussion.
 
Presentations:
 
• The Data Seal of Approval as a building block for trusted digital archives of research data: Henk Harmsen * (for downloading see below)

The point of view of three ESFRI European Research Infrastructures on trusted digital archives:
• CESSDA: Matthew Woollard *
• DARIAH: Milena Piccoli *
• CLARIN: Steven Krauwer *

Short reflections on trusted digital repositories and building blocks for a certification process:
• DRAMBORA and TRAC: Raivo Ruusalepp *
• NESTOR: Natascha Schumann *
• E-IPY-DIS: Hans Pfeiffenberger *
• ICPSR: Mary Vardigan *

In the discussion on trusted digital research archives the following questions were answered:
• Are the guidelines of the DSA applicable as a first step? Are DRAMBORA and TRAC useful additional steps?
• What is missing for trusted archives?
• Are additional quality requirements for specific disciplines needed? (building blocks for social sciences, history, linguistics, etc.)
• Procedures for the implementation: how can they work

Summaries of the rapporteurs of the three groups:
1.    Social Sciences – CESSDA *
2.    DARIAH and other humanities/cultural heritage *
3.    Linguistics – CLARIN *

* Available presentations: