Deposit Appraisal & Collection Policy

Submission appraisal criteria

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 encourages submission of 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 using the digital data files and their supporting material. At least a portion of the submissions needs to be made publicly accessible. However, tightly controlled access conditions may apply even to that portion.

Out of scope materials

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 limited 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 depositor (and/or the data rights-holder) is unwilling to apply appropriate data or other protections as recommended by ADA staff. Materials submitted may also not be accepted if the metadata provided is insufficient for long-term preservation. This includes the social science DDI metadata on ADA Dataverse, as well as variable-level metadata for all files submitted and all data variables. The ADA will work with depositors to ensure metadata is complete at all levels. Finally, in the event that the ADA determines that the material is not suitable for archiving, it will endeavour to provide the depositor with suggestions of other suitable repositories. The final decision about acceptance of a submission lies with the ADA Director.

Preferred data formats

The ADA accepts most formats. However, for tabular data files, the ADA prefers submission in SPSS format (.sav files). This format captures variable level metadata (variable and value labels, data formats etc.) and SPSS Statistics is adept at exporting multiple alternative file formats. The ADA also accepts Stata (.dta) SAS (.sas; .sas7bdat), and R (.rdata), as well as text formats (.csv; .tab) provided data including both value labels and codes can be provided. Other data formats will be considered on a case-by-case basis. For qualitative data, data formats vary significantly and submitted formats will also be considered on a case-by-case basis.

References

[22] Deposit Appraisal & Collection Policy – (https://docs.ada.edu.au/index.php/Deposit_Appraisal_%26_Collection_Policy)