Increasing the Reuse of Data through FAIR-enabling the Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories

Authors : Benjamin Jacob Mathers, Hervé L’Hours

The long-term preservation of digital objects, and the means by which they can be reused, are addressed by both the FAIR Data Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and a number of standards bodies providing Trustworthy Digital Repository (TDR) certification, such as the CoreTrustSeal.

Though many of the requirements listed in the Core Trustworthy Data Repositories Requirements 2020–2022 Extended Guidance address the FAIR Data Principles indirectly, there is currently no formal ‘FAIR Certification’ offered by the CoreTrustSeal or other TDR standards bodies. To address this gap the FAIRsFAIR project developed a number of tools and resources that facilitate the assessment of FAIR-enabling practices at the repository level as well as the FAIRness of datasets within them.

These include the CoreTrustSeal+FAIRenabling Capability Maturity model (CTS+FAIR CapMat), a FAIR-Enabling Trustworthy Digital Repositories-Capability Maturity Self-Assessment template, and F-UJI ,  a web-based tool designed to assess the FAIRness of research data objects.

The success of such tools and resources ultimately depends upon community uptake. This requires a community-wide commitment to develop best practices to increase the reuse of data and to reach consensus on what these practices are.

One possible way of achieving community consensus would be through the creation of a network of FAIR-enabling TDRs, as proposed by FAIRsFAIR.

URL : Increasing the Reuse of Data through FAIR-enabling the Certification of Trustworthy Digital Repositories

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v17i1.852

Evidence for Trusted Digital Repository Reviews: An Analysis of Perspectives

Author : Jonathan David Crabtree

Building trust in our research infrastructure is important for the future of the academy. Trust in research data repositories is critical as they provide the evidence for past discoveries as well as the input for future discoveries.

Archives and repositories are examining their options for trustworthy review, audit, and certification as a means to build trust within their content creator and user communities. One option these institutions have is to increase and demonstrate their trustworthiness is to apply for the CoreTrustSeal.

Applicants for the CoreTrustSeal are becoming more numerous and diverse, ranging general purpose repositories, preservation infrastructure providers, and domain repositories. This demand for certification and the subjective nature of decisions around levels of CORETrustSeal compliance drives this dissertation.

It is a study of the review process and its veracity and consistency in determining the trustworthiness of applicant repositories. Several assumptions underlie this work. First, audits and reviews must be based on evidence supplied by the repository under scrutiny; second, and not all reviewers will approach a piece of evidence in the same fashion or give it the same weight. Third, the value and veracity of required evidence may be subject to reviewers’ diverse perspectives and diverse repository community norms.

This research used a thematic qualitative analysis approach to identify similarities and differences in CoreTrustSeal reviewers’ responses during semi-structured interviews in order to better understand potential subjective differences among respondents. The participants’ non-probabilistic sample represented a balance in perspectives across three anticipated categories: administrator, archivist, and technologist.

Themes converged around several key concepts. Nearly all participants felt they were performing a peer review process and working to help the repository community and the research enterprise.

Reviewers were questioned about the various CoreTrustSeal application requirements and which ones they felt were the most important. No clear evidence emerged to indicate that variations in perspectives affected the subjective review of application evidence. The same categories of evidence were often selected and identified as being critical across all three categories (i.e., administrator, archivist, and technologist).

Many valuable suggestions from participants were recorded and can be implemented to ensure the consistency and sustainability of this trusted repository review process.

These suggestions and concepts were also very evenly distributed across the three perspectives. The balance in perspectives is potentially due to participants’ experience levels and their years of experience in various positions, holding many responsibilities, within the organizations they represented.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.17615/npck-km73

Global electronic thesis and dissertation repositories – collection diversity and management issues

Authors: Fayaz Ahmad Loan, Ufaira Yaseen Shah

This article discovers the collection diversity of electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) repositories based on key parameters such as regional distribution, subject classification, language diversity, etc. and identifies the critical management issues of the ETD repositories related to collection management, software management, content management and metadata policies.

The ETD repositories were identified in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR). The required data were manually collected from the OpenDOAR and websites of repositories to achieve the prescribed objectives of the study. The data were later tabulated, analysed and interpreted using simple arithmetic techniques.

The study was limited to the ETD repositories available in the OpenDOAR, and findings cannot be generalized across repositories and directories. It provides insights about ETD repositories worldwide, highlights their critical management issues and suggests mechanisms for their sustainable growth and development.

This article is purely based on research and its findings are valid for scholars, faculty members, institutions – as well as administrators and managers of the ETD repositories.

URL : Global electronic thesis and dissertation repositories – collection diversity and management issues

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.524

Enhancing scholarly communication through institutional repositories: salient issues and strategies by libraries in Nigeria

Author : Ngozi B. Ukachi

The place of institutional repositories in enhancing scholarly communication is becoming obvious as academic institutions are embracing this activity which among many other key roles, enables wider circulation of research outputs of institutions.

This study is concentrated on establishing the strategies and models adopted by libraries in Nigeria in ensuring that their institutional repositories effectively enhance scholarly communication. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study while the purposive sampling technique was employed in selecting libraries that have institutional repositories.

Questionnaire complemented with oral interview were the instruments used for data collection. Data collected was analysed using SPSS software. The outcome revealed that the two most prevailing activities carried out by the libraries in modelling their institutional repositories for enhanced scholarly communication are; digitization of scholarly contents in printed format and allowing self- archiving of research outputs of members of staff.

Announcing and publicizing their contents through the library website is the main strategy adopted by the libraries in promoting their institutional repositories for enhanced scholarly communication revealed.

Challenges encountered include; issues with legal framework/ intellectual property right, difficulty in content recruitment, etc.

The study concluded by recommending among others that the library management should expose members of staff in-charge of content upload to trainings in the area of copyright law, put in place a submission policy that will compel members of staff to submit their research outputs to the repository and, establish a reward system to academic members of staff who submit their works to the institutional repository.

URL : Enhancing scholarly communication through institutional repositories: salient issues and strategies by libraries in Nigeria

Alternative location : http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2268

Challenges and opportunities in the evolving digital preservation landscape: reflections from Portico

Authors: Kate Wittenberg, Sarah Glasser, Amy Kirchhoff, Sheila Morrissey, Stephanie Orphan

There has been tremendous growth in the amount of digital content created by libraries, publishers, cultural institutions and the general public. While there are great benefits to having content available in digital form, digital objects can be extremely short-lived unless proper attention is paid to preservation.

Reflecting on our experience with the digital preservation service Portico, we provide background on Portico’s history and evolving practice of sustainable preservation of the digital artifacts of scholarly communications.

We also provide an overview of the digital preservation landscape as we see it now, with some thoughts on current requirements for preservation, and thoughts on the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

URL : Challenges and opportunities in the evolving digital preservation landscape: reflections from Portico

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.421

Science 2.0 Repositories: Time for a Change in Scholarly Communication

Statut

“Information and communication technology (ICT) advances in research infrastructures are continuously changing the way research and scientific communication are performed. Scientists, funders, and organizations are moving the paradigm of “research publishing” well beyond traditional articles. The aim is to pursue an holistic approach where publishing includes any product (e.g. publications, datasets, experiments, software, web sites, blogs) resulting from a research activity and relevant to the interpretation, evaluation, and reuse of the activity or part of it. The implementation of this vision is today mainly inspired by literature scientific communication workflows, which separate the “where” research is conducted from the “where” research is published and shared. In this paper we claim that this model cannot fit well with scientific communication practice envisaged in Science 2.0 settings. We present the idea of Science 2.0 Repositories (SciRepos), which meet publishing requirements arising in Science 2.0 by blurring the distinction between research life-cycle and research publishing. SciRepos interface with the ICT services of research infrastructures to intercept and publish research products while providing researchers with social networking tools for discovery, notification, sharing, discussion, and assessment of research products.”

URL : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january15/assante/01assante.html