CESSDA Data Archiving Guide
The Data Archiving Guide (DAG) is designed to provide new employees at social science data archives with a general understanding of the work a data archive performs.
Note: the DAG is under development.
The information in the DAG was collected by experts from several CESSDA social science data archives reflecting the procedures and policies at their local archives. While the context of these archives varies and may well be different from your own archive - in size, the underlying technical architecture or in the support you provide to researchers - the DAG focuses on common ground and is a useful tool for professionals new to data archiving.
In this guide, you will learn what a data archive is, what it does, and why data archives play an important role in the scientific infrastructure. After reading the DAG, you will have a basic understanding of the working procedures of a data archive and you will also be able to name the set of policies that a data archive needs to have in place to function optimally.
Data Archives - a Quick Introduction
Gain an overview of why data archives exist and what their mission, function and way of operating is.
Policies of Data Archives
Information about the types of policies (and some related documents) a social science data archive has most typically has in place.
Pre-ingest
What data archives do to ensure that incoming data meet the criteria of data collection and quality requirements.
Ingest and Curation
The steps required to guarantee high quality data, documentation material and metadata for secure archiving and dissemination.
FAIR-enabling and Trustworthy Qualities of Data Archives
Learn about the FAIR principles and the concept of trustworthiness, and how these qualities are reflected within data archives.