Chapter 2: Policies of Data Archives

Introduction

The second chapter of the DAG focuses on “Policies of Data Archives”. It describes the types of policies (and some related documents) a social science data archive has most typically has in place.

The Policies chapter highlights the most relevant issues that Data Archives must take into consideration in relation to the main operations they perform on a daily basis. Policies are useful, and sometimes mandatory, for several reasons. They can simply make more clear and formal an archive’s commitment to FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). In some cases, Policies are required to satisfy standards such as ISO 27001 (an international standard on how to manage information security) or can be useful as evidence when seeking certifications such as CoreTrustSeal (CoreTrustSeal n.d.).

The sections of this chapter are conceptually connected to the sections of the first chapter of this Data Archiving Guide; they include basic common policies and procedures like Data Collection and Acquisition, Preservation, Curation, Data Access, and Data Dissemination, covering principles and necessary measures to be implemented in terms of policies to ensure the sustainability of both datasets and repositories.