[IP-OA_Forum] re3data COREF project: Quality management in research data repositories - Workshop documentation & survey results published

[Nina Weisweiler <nina.weisweiler@os.helmholtz.de>]

*Apologies for cross-posting*

Dear colleagues,

Data quality assurance is a fundamental issue for repositories that seek to ensure trust in their services. On October 5, 2022, this topic was addressed in a workshop, hosted by the project re3data COREF [1]. The objective of the workshop was to approach the pervasive, yet elusive topic of data quality management from several viewpoints.

The recordings and presentation slides are now published and linked via the re3data COREF blog: https://coref.project.re3data.org/blog/workshop_materials

In the first part of the workshop, results from a comprehensive survey on data quality assurance at research data repositories that was conducted in re3data COREF were presented, followed by reflections on quality management from the perspective of the certification organization CoreTrustSeal. In the second part, repositories from earth and environmental sciences (PANGAEA [2]), humanities (ARCHE [3]) and social sciences (UK Data Archive [4]) shared their approaches on data quality assurance.

The findings of the survey on the status quo of data quality assurance practices at research data repositories have been published in the Data Science Journal:

Kindling, M., & Strecker, D. (2022). Data Quality Assurance at Research Data Repositories. Data Science Journal, 21(1), 18. https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2022-018

The main findings reported in the paper are:

• Quality assurance at research data repositories is multifaceted and nonlinear. Although there are some common patterns, individual approaches to ensuring data quality are diverse.
• In the context of research data, data quality and metadata quality are enmeshed and can not be clearly separated.
• Research data repositories significantly contribute to data quality. However, data quality assurance sets high expectations for repositories and requires a lot of resources. This is in part due to a path dependence of data review on review processes for text publications.
• Information on results of the formal assessment and review of individual datasets are not yet widely available.
• The association between the certification status of a repository and its data quality assurance practices is weak.

    With best regards from the re3data COREF team

Nina Weisweiler

    [1] https://coref.project.re3data.org/project
    [2] https://pangaea.de/
    
    [3] https://arche.acdh.oeaw.ac.at/browser/
    [4] https://www.data-archive.ac.uk/