Deposit & Appraisal

What data does the ADA accepts

The ADA accepts data that fits broadly into the remit of the archive and can be described with the social science DDI metadata. Submissions must be of current value or of potential historical interest to the ADA. The subject matter being in either the Social, Political or Economic areas, and their many affiliated research fields. The ADA will also accept full project data and not just the data associated with a publication release, which is often only a small subset of the actual data available. Submissions must have the potential for secondary analysis to be conducted, using the digital data files and their supporting material. At least a portion of the submissions needs to be made publicly available. However tightly controlled access condition may apply even to that portion.

What data does the ADA not accept

The ADA will only accept digital material. There are no other firm rules regarding the material that won’t be accepted by the ADA for preservation and dissemination, however submissions that contain explicit or offensive material and those that offer no potential for secondary analysis will not be considered favorably. In addition, submissions that pose significant risk of re-identification may also be rejected where the Data Owner is unwilling to apply appropriate data or other protections as recommended by ADA staff. Finally, in the event that the ADA determines that the material is not suitable for archiving, it will endeavour to provide the Data Owner with other potential archives that are more suited to the subject matter. The final decision about acceptance of a submission lies with the director or deputy director of the ADA.

Preferred data formats

The ADA accepts most formats, has a list of preferred formats. All data and documents will be saved in the AIP in a preservation format (see R09 Preservation plan) regardless of the format received in the SIP. For dissemination, the ADA will create SPSS, STATA, SAS and CSV versions for quantitative data. For qualitative data, possible data formats vary significantly. For this reason, ADA has developed specific preferred formats, partly based on those identified by the UK Data Archive .