Building Trust in Scientific Data: CoreTrustSeal Certification & the World Data System

Data created and used by scientists should be managed, curated, and archived in trustworthy data repositories to enable their reuse and ensure the integrity of science. The trustworthiness and sustainability of a data repository raise important organizational, technical, financial, and legal challenges, and depend on the quality and transparency of their data management processes, the use of established standards, their efforts for long-term preservation, and how suitable their services are for their designated community. Repository certification—such as the CoreTrustSeal Certification—gives an independent and objective evaluation of a repository’s reliability and durability, and helps researchers, funders, librarians, and publishers ascertain which repositories to use. This talk will focus on the core certification of data repositories by the CoreTrustSeal and on membership within the World Data System of the International Science Council, presenting the experiences of the Australian Data Archive as a use case. The talk will also touch briefly on the future of core certification of other entities within the scientific research process