Data Seal of Approval (DSA) - The assessment procedure

Lisa de Leeuw (DANS) Henk Harmsen (DANS) The Data Seal of Approval ensures that in the future, research data can still be processed in a high-quality and reliable manner, without this entailing new thresholds, regulations or high costs. The Data Seal of Approval and it's quality guidelines may be of interest to research institutions, organizations that archive data and to users of that data. It can be granted to any repository that applies for it via the assessment procedure. Achieving the DSA means that the data concerned have been subjected to the sixteen guidelines of which the assessment procedure consists. The data archive as an organization should take care of the overall implementation of the DSA in its own specific field. In the integrated Framework for Auditing and certification, which is being set up at the moment, DSA will be the first step in 3 tiered certification process, see: http://www.trusteddigitalrepository.eu The DSA-Board has developed an online self-assessment tool through which the DSA can be applied for. In this paper we will present the online application tool, focussing amongst others on problems and solutions, as well as elaborate on the procedures around DSA