Workflows

Assessment for Suitability of Deposit

When a prospective depositor has made contact with the ADA, the deposit request is assessed by the director or deputy director of the ADA for suitability (see Deposit Appraisal & Collection Policy).

Deposit of Data and Documentation

The depositing data workflow is documented and available to prospective depositors as a “quick deposit guide” [5].

When a depositor contacts the ADA, the proposed deposit is assessed by the ADA for suitability (see R08 Deposit & Appraisal). Once the deposit has been provisionally accepted, an ADA archivist will set up a deposit shell on the ADA Deposit Dataverse instance. The ADA archival workflow is managed across three separate Dataverse installations. See R14 Storage & Integrity on how and where data is stored.

Depositors are instructed to upload all data and supporting documentation files to their Deposit Dataverse. The ADA archivist will prompt the depositor to complete the DDI metadata fields on the deposit shell. The archivist will correspond with the depositor if further information is needed to create complete documentation for their data (See requirements described in R10 Qualty Assurance).

Data Processing

When the deposit shell is created using ADA’s ADAPT tool (described in section R07), each deposit is assigned a unique six-digit ADA Identification (ADAID) number. ADAPT will copy the deposited files to an archive directory identified by the same unique ADAID number as the Submission Information Package (SIP; see R07). Within the SIP, the initial draft deposit remains unchanged so that a complete end-to-end audit trail can be always maintained. The archivists generate a copy of the data to update the SIP material as required. Archival and working dircetories are accessed via a Remote Desktop Service (RDS) that is managed by the NCI (see R14 on Storage and Integrity).

Archivists curate the data and documentation as agreed with the depositor. The level of curation may depend on the type of data (e.g., quantitative or qualitative), the perceived value of the data to the designated community, its sensitivity, or other factors as determined in consultation with the depositor. The archivist will check for disclosure risk and liaise with the depositor about how best to mitigate any risks identified. Data will also be checked for re-usability, including appropriate metadata and consistent mapping to supporting documentation such as data dictionary or user guide. Proposed changes to the data are detailed in a Processing Report sent to the Data Owner’s for approval prior to the changes being made. All agreed changes are recorded in the curation syntax as part of the AIP.

Review and Publication

Once all agreed changes to the data and metadata have been made, the archivist will set up a preview on the Test Dataverse instance that reflects the intended final production version of both the metadata and files. Once the data owner/depositor has approved the preview, it is duplicated on the Production Dataverse instance using the ADAPT tool. Here the data is published, searchable, and available for access request. DDI metadata is always publicly accessible, as is all project documentation files (unless depositors have specified otherwise). Data access is typically restricted and can be downloaded subject to data access criteria [8], including at minimum an ADA account with a verified institutional email and sufficient responses to any “guestbook” questions (subject to the ADA License Agreement and Terms of Access; see section R02 for details). Access criteria are recorded on ADA’s internal wiki (not publicly available) for reference by access management staff.

Changes or updates to the data files of an already published deposit are handled via the above deposit and processing workflows. Changes are automatically version controlled in Dataverse. Major changes, that is a change to the data, result in a full versioning (i.e. Version 1.0 becomes Version 2.0), while a minor change such as the addition of metadata results in a sub-versioning (i.e. from Version 1.0 to Version 1.1).

Preservation

At publication, preservation versions of the DDI metadata are exported using Dataverse export functionality. The metadata is stored in a preservation sub-directory with that deposit’s ADAID in the archive directory, along with a copy of the published SPSS data file(s) and SPSS syntax. The Preservation Plan [9] outlines how ADA manages long term preservation of data and metadata for reuse.

Adjusting Workflows, Decision Handling, and Change Management

The ADA Archive Team meets weekly with the ADA Director to discuss workflows and decisions as required. These meetings are minuted and decisions documented on the ADA internal wiki.

References

[34] Workflows – (https://docs.ada.edu.au/index.php/Workflows)

[9] Preservation Plan – (https://docs.ada.edu.au/index.php/Preservation_plan)

[5] Deposit guidelines – (https://docs.ada.edu.au/index.php/Quick_Deposit_Guide)