FAIR Data in Trustworthy Data Repositories
Ingrid Dillo
Data Archiving and NetworkedServices (DANS)The Netherlands
ingrid.dillo@dans.knaw.nl

KEYWORDS
Certification, data sharing, FAIR, CoreTrustSeal, open data,repository, Data Seal of Approval, World Data System

1 OPEN DATA AND DATA SHARING
Research funding in recent years often comes with the condition
to make some of the resulting data openly available. Most
researchers appreciate the benefits of sharing research data, but on
an individual basis they may be reluctant to share their own data.
Why are some researchers hesitant to share? And what are themost important motivations of researchers who do share theirdata?12 THE CONCEPT OF TRUST ANDREPOSITORY CERTIFICATION
National and international funders are increasingly likely tomandate open data and data management policies that call for the
long-term storage and accessibility of data. Open data and data
sharing can only become a success if we put the concept of trust
central stage. The certification of digital repositories is an
important means to provide this trust to the different stakeholders
involved.
If we want to be able to share data, we need to store them in atrustworthy digital repository. Data created and used by scientists
should be managed, curated, and archived in such a way topreserve the initial investment in collecting them. Researchers
must be certain that data held in archives remain useful andmeaningful into the future. Funding authorities increasingly
require continued access to data produced by the projects theyfund, and have made this an important element in DataManagement Plans. Indeed, some funders now stipulate that
thedata they fund must be deposited in a trustworthy repository.
Sustainability of repositories raises a number of challenging issues
in different areas: organizational, technical, financial, legal, etc.
Certification can be an important contribution to ensuring thereliability and durability of digital repositories and hence thepotential for sharing data over a long period of time. By becoming
certified, repositories can demonstrate to both their users and their1

Van den Eynden, V. and Bishop, L. (2014). Incentives and motivations for sharing
research data, a researcher’s perspective. A Knowledge Exchange Report, available
from knowledge-echange.info/Default.aspx?ID=733

funders that an independent authority has evaluated them andendorsed their trustworthiness.
Within the tiered framework of certification standards that hasdeveloped over the last decade core level certification has been
embraced by a large number of repositories around the globe.
Within the framework of the Research Data Alliance the ICSUWorld Data System (WDS) and the Data Seal of Approval (DSA)
have developed a unified catalogue of requirements.2 The groupbuilt on inherent complementarity between the criteria previously
established by the two organizations to harmonize unified anduniversal requirements reflecting the core characteristics oftrustworthy data repositories. The first new CoreTrustSeals (CTS)
have already been acquired.

3 FAIR DATA IN TRUSTWORTHY
DIGITALREPOSITORIESThe condition to make data resulting from publicly funded
research openly available has the effect that more and more data
are rapidly becoming available. Therefore, there also is a growing
demand for quality criteria for research datasets. The CTS
requirements and the FAIR principles get as close as possible togiving quality criteria for research data. They do not do this bytrying to make value judgements about the content of datasets, butrather by qualifying the fitness for data reuse in an impartial andmeasurable way.
In 2014 the FAIR Guiding Principles (Findable, Accessible,Interoperable and Reusable) were formulated. 3 The well-chosen
FAIR acronym is highly attractive. In a relatively short term, theFAIR data principles have been adopted by many stakeholder
groups, including research funders.
The FAIR principles are remarkably similar to the underlying
principles of DSA (2005): the data can be found on the Internet,
are accessible (clear rights and licenses), in a usable format,
reliable and are identified in a unique and persistent way so thatthey can be referred to. Essentially, CTS presents quality criteria
for digital repositories, whereas FAIR targets individual datasets.
Bringing the ideas of the CTS and FAIR together offers anoperationalization that can be implemented in any certified
Trustworthy Digital Repository.

2
https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/repository-audit-and-certification-dsa–
wdspartnership-wg.html
https://www.datasealofapproval.org/en/newsandevents/news/2017/3/30/new-standards-and-certification-entity-horizon/
3
https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples