Data repositories are used for data storage and sharing. A repository is an information system designed for the long-term preservation and dissemination of digital objects, i.e. ensuring the storage, protection, integrity, authenticity and accessibility of digital objects in the long term.
Types of Repositories:
- Institutional – repository used to store the output of a single institution – for example ASEP – the institutional repository of the CAS.
- Domain-specific – repository for a specific field, to which experts from different institutions contribute, can be and often is international, or individual national solutions are involved in international networks. The Czech Social Science Data Archive (CSDA) is thus the Czech national node of the pan-European research infrastructure Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA ERIC), Digital Research Infrastructure for the Language Technologies, Arts and Humanities (LINDAT) is the Czech national node of the pan-European research infrastructure (CLARIN ERIC), Czech National Infrastructure for Biological Data (ELIXIR CZ) – distributed bioinformatics research infrastructure is part of the European Research Infrastructure for Life Science Data (ELIXIR). The European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC)
- National – repository with central competence at the national level – (REPO national repository)
- Universal – domain non-specific repozitory, for exeample Zenodo.
An important attribute of a repository is trustworthiness
“Trustworthy digital repositories can be defined as repositories which, in accordance with their mission, provide reliable and long-term access to organized digital resources in the target audience – today and in the future.” (Miranda, 2015).
To facilitate the recognition of the trustworthiness of repositories, the identity of the operator (institutional and national repositories) or one of the certifications established in the industry (CoreTrustSeal, Nestor Seal or ISO16363) can be used, in such cases the repository can be considered trustworthy.
OpenAIRE Recommendations
When selecting a suitable repository to store your data, it is advisable to follow these recommendations from OpenAIRE – How to find a trustworthy repository for your data:
- use a disciplinary repository if there is one;
- alternatively, use the institutional repository, if you have one where the data will also be available for the long term;
- use the catch-all repository Zenodo, maintained by CERN;
- or search in a global registry – re3data, or FAIRsharing. (These registries provide a comprehensive overview of existing international data repositories and contain useful information to help you choose the most appropriate repository for your data).
