The trustworthiness as a requirement for a data archive: an opportunity to improve tools and procedures

ABSTRACT. Data sharing and re-use in the social sciences are practices that are facilitated by the availability of specialised research infrastructures, in particular the data archives. One of the main issues concerning data archives is trust within the scientific community, due to their role as intermediaries between researchers. Under this perspective, data depositors need to be guaranteed that their data will be cared for and accessed in a stable and secure manner, while data users need to be confident to access data easily and in a documented way to reuse it correctly. Based on this assumption, it is interesting to explore how data archives address the issue of trustworthiness towards their community. Trust is a broad concept that often overlaps with quality, validity, and reliability. How can it be measured? And how can an archive demonstrate its reliability to researchers? The acquisition of a “seal of approval” by a research infrastructure demonstrates its reliability. It certifies that the procedures followed for the acquisition, management, and long-term preservation of data meet high-quality standards. This also requires a technologically secure environment as well as skilled human resources qualified to operate the service. All of these requirements enhance the repository reputation and attractiveness to researchers and contribute to determining its ability to become a reference point for the scientific community for both data deposit and re-use. The proposed paper presents the path taken by the Data Archive for Social Sciences in Italy (DASSI) to obtain the quality certification issued by CoreTrustSeal, the certification approach recommended within the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and selected by CESSDA ERIC for its members. In particular, the paper reflects on the concept of “trust” and its implications for a research infrastructure, highlighting its impact on tasks and roles and focusing on key aspects to meet trustworthiness requirements.