Repository Audit and Certification DSA–WDS Partnership WG Recommendations

Repository Audit and Certification DSA–WDS Partnership WG

Group Co-chairs:  Lesley Rickards, Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level Mary Vardigan, ICPSR Rorie Edmunds, ICSU World Data System

Recommendation Title: Repository Audit and Certification Catalogues

Authors: Lesley Rickards; Mary Vardigan; Michael Diepenbroek; Ingrid Dillo; Francoise Genova; Herve L’hours; Wim Hugo; Varsha Khodiyar; Guoqing Li; Jean-Bernard Minster; Paul Trilsbeek; Lesley Wyborn; Rorie Edmunds; Mustapha Mokrane; Eleni Panag

Impact: Creates harmonized Common Procedures  for certification of repositories at the basic level, drawing from the procedures already put in place by the Data Seal of Approval (DSA) and the ICSU World Data System (ICSU­WDS)

Recommendation Package DOIs: Requirements 2017-2019: https://10.5281/zenodo.168411 Requirements 2020-2022: https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.667809 Requirements 2023-2025: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7051012 Procedures: https://doi.org/10.15497/rda00019

Citation: Lesley Rickards; Mary Vardigan; Michael Diepenbroek; Ingrid Dillo; Francoise Genova; Herve L’hours; Wim Hugo; Varsha Khodiyar; Guoqing Li; Jean-Bernard Minster; Paul Trilsbeek; Lesley Wyborn; Rorie Edmunds; Mustapha Mokrane; Eleni Panagou(2016)DSA–WDS Partnership Working Group Catalogue of Common Procedures for Certification. DOI: 10.15497/RDA00019

[Note: As part of an open call in the RDA Europe 4.0 project to adopt RDA Recommendations and Outputs, the Common Requirements and Procedures, as well the testbed report have been translated into Hungarian: https://openaccess.mtak.hu/index.php/projektek/rda]

The Repository Audit and Certification DSA–WDS Partnership WG has produced a two-part recommendation.The first part consists in a Catalogue of Common Procedures for certification, while the second part is  focused on a Catalogue of Common Requirements. 

The Catalogue of Common Procedures was developed by the DSA–WDS Partnership Working Group on Repository Audit and Certification, a Working Group (WG) of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) . The goal of the effort was to create a set of harmonized Common Procedures for certification of repositories at the basic level, drawing from the procedures already put in place by the Data Seal of Approval (DSA) and the ICSU World Data System (ICSU­-WDS). These procedures are intended to support the implementation of the Catalogue of Common Requirements developed by the WG to harmonize the certification criteria previously established by the DSA and ICSU-WDS.

In developing and implementing the Common Procedures, the Working Group decided to introduce shared practices gradually, with the first step being that both organizations will implement the Catalogue of Common Requirements within their existing systems, following agreed­upon procedures. However, the ultimate aims are to bring the organizations closer together, with tighter integration, and to collaborate on a certification framework that involves higher ­level standards such as nestor­Seal DIN 31644 (extended­ level certification) and ISO 16363 (formal­ level certification).

Additionally, the Working Group released a report on the testbed they created to evaluate the DSA-WDS Common Requirements and Common Procedures.