The Data Seal of Approval awarded to the CDS

The CDS has been awarded the Data Seal of Approval (DSA, www.datasealofapproval.org/en).
The DSA was established by a number of institutions committed to the long term archiving of research data. By assigning the seal, the DSA community seeks to guarantee the durability of the data concerned, but also to promote the goal of durable archiving in general. The DSA is granted to repositories that are committed to archiving and providing access to scholarly research in a sustainable way.

The Seal of Approval

• Gives researchers the assurance that their research results will be stored in a reliable manner and can be reused
• Provides research sponsors with the guarantee that research results will remain available for reuse
• Enables researchers, in a reliable manner, to assess the repository where research data are held
• Allows data repositories to archive and distribute research data efficiently.

The DSA certification relies on 16 criteria which determine whether or not the digital research data may be qualified as sustainably archived. The criteria ascertain that the research data is discoverable on the internet, accessible, usable, reliable and citable.

The CDS was already a Regular Member of the World Data System (WDS), an ICSU body which strives to build worldwide "communities of excellence" for scientific data services by certifying Member Organisations. The DSA certification is a good complement to the WDS one.

With the development of the “Open Data” paradigm, the role of sustainable and trustable data repositories/services becomes more and more important for research. This has long been known from the astronomical community world-wide, and CDS has been providing reference data services for more than 40 years. It was timely in the current context to seek formal certifications granted by external bodies to back up the trust in our services demonstrated every day by their high level of usage by the community.