After the launch of the Data Station Archaeology in 2022, followed by SSH a year ago, and the Data Stations Life Sciences and Physical and Technical Sciences at the end of 2023, we are pleased with the transition of EASY (the former data archive) to a renewed and improved domain-specific repository system based on Dataverse.
All deposits now go through one of our four Data Stations, which offers many advantages. For example, we offer more domain-specific metadata, allowing datasets to be described even better and in greater detail. Moreover, in the Data Station SSH you can tag datasets with the standardized terms from the European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST), which makes finding relevant datasets easier. Thanks to Dataverse’s easy integration with existing vocabularies, we can add even more SSH vocabularies in the future.
On the day of the launch, more than 7,000 datasets were findable in Data Station SSH. Over 350 datasets have been added in the past year, and we are processing new filings daily. In total, more than 110,000 files are permanently archived in our Data Station SSH.
Thanks to the extensive search capabilities, filters and facets in our Data Station, anyone can search the files and datasets. This allows researchers to find relevant data for their specific research question. On average, the Data Station SSH has more than 2,000 unique visitors per month and more than 250,000 files have been downloaded since its launch.
To make depositing and reusing datasets as easy as possible, DANS offers extensive support to users of the Data Station SSH. Every week you can turn to us with your questions at our Open Hour.
In the past year, we have published several manuals, including information on how to make qualitative data reusable and additional information for depositing with access restrictions. After all, in the social sciences and humanities, a lot of work is done with personal data and sensitive information, so data sets can sometimes be reused only under certain conditions. A template data access protocol helps depositors to quickly gather all relevant information to properly define the conditions.
At DANS, the past year we have been focussing on storing data sustainably and making it safely available for reuse. We will continue to do so. You can check out our Data Station SSH for yourself at: https://ssh.datastations.nl/.
For more information, contact one of our Data Station Managers.
