HOW WE CURATE DATA

DATA SEAL OF APPROVAL

The Data Seal of Approval is an informal series of guidelines which digital repositories can use to self-assess their practices to ensure that they are aware of issues surrounding digital preservation and have practices in place to control against those issues.

Data Seal of Approval logo

The UK Data Archive has been involved in the creation of the Data Seal of Approval (DSA) because we believe that the complex international standards which currently exist in this area are not the best place for repositories to start to assess their practices. The DSA is a 'low-level' series of guidelines which does not replace more formal standards, both existing and forthcoming, but provides a way for smaller and more specialist organisations to reach a recognised benchmark in digital repository management.

The Archive has self-assessed against the DSA. An external organisation also checked that our self-assessment was honest and reliable. Details of our assessment and the 'seal' itself will be posted in due course.

DSA overview (PDF)

DSA booklet (PDF)

DSA website

OUR SERVICES  

ESDS 
providing access to key economic and social data
RELU-DSS 
supporting rural research data management
Census.ac.uk 
providing a gateway to 1971- 2001 UK censuses
HDS 
enabling access to a range of historical resources
SDS 
enabling safe and secure remote access to data
SQB 
providing access to key survey questionnaires

DATA LIFECYCLE  

CREATING DATA: designing, planning consent, collection and management, capturing and creating metadata
PROCESSING DATA:  entering, transcribing, checking & validating, anonymising and describing
ANALYSING DATA: interpreting, deriving, producing outputs & publishing, preparing for sharing
PRESERVING DATA: migrating, backing-up, storing, creating metadata and documentation, archiving
ACCESS TO DATA: distributing, sharing, controlling access, promoting
RE-USING DATA: for follow-ups, new research, research reviews, scrutinising, teaching & learning
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