On December 9, 2021, Oya Y. Rieger will be presenting at USDA’s Data Stewards Community of Practice Meeting. Abstract is below:

Assessing the Reliability, Effectiveness, and Sustainability of Data Repositories

Researchers feel an increasing pressure to make research data publicly available in disciplinary or general repositories. To enable this process, there need to be standards and processes to assist them in identifying reliable data repositories to ensure that the data will be preserved and made accessible and usable for the designated communities. In support of this goal, audit and certification methods for digital preservation implementations have been in development for over a decade with the emergence of different methodologies. These audit tools and certification processes aim to assess the reliability, commitment, and readiness of institutions to assume long-term preservation responsibilities. There are several certification standards such as DSA, ICSU-WDS, NESTOR, TRAC, and TDR that pertain to research data. Given the variety of such methods, the purpose of the presentation is to go over the current landscape and discuss the core criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness and sustainability of data repositories. It aims to offer an overview of available certification frameworks, practices, shortcomings