Background Information and Context

Identifier information

• Re3data Identifier: https://www.re3data.org/repository/r3d100010138
• ROR identifier: https://ror.org/00qtfgg81
• RRID:SCR_014706
• FAIRsharing DOI: 10.25504/FAIRsharing.sN8d9i

Repository type

Specialist repository

Overview

The Australian Data Archive (ADA) provides a national service for the collection and preservation of digital research data and to make these data available for secondary analysis by academic researchers and other users. The archive is based in POLIS: The Centre for Social Policy Research (formerly the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods; CSRM) at the Australian National University (ANU). Along with Australian data, ADA is also a repository for studies conducted in other countries, particularly throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

The ADA:

- Has a team of professional data archivists, advised by a panel of leading social scientists, providing both stewardship and outreach services to the Australian research community.

- Acquires, documents, preserves, and disseminates data online to a broad range of social science researchers in the university, government, and other sectors.

- Provides the only comprehensive social science data collection in Australia, with a catalogue of data files from over 1700 projects dating back to 1833 through to the present day.

- Holds data from Australian surveys, opinion polls and censuses and includes data from other countries within the Asia Pacific region. The ADA data catalogue includes studies from countries other than Australia including New Zealand, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China and Indonesia.

- Provides specialist services:

ADA offers comprehensive services that support secure reuse of research data:

• Technical liaison and platform integration – design, deployment, and ongoing support for digital research infrastructure. For example, ADA hosts CADRE (Coordinated Access for Data, Researchers and Environments, cadre.ada.edu.au), a shared, distributed platform for managing access to sensitive data.

• Archival workflows and risk assessment – end-to-end ingest, curation, and preservation pipelines, underpinned by ADAPT (Archival Data Processing Tool) and CARAT (Curation and Risk Assessment Tool) for systematic privacy risk evaluation and documentation. ADAPT and CARAT are currently internal tools and only accessible to ADA staff.

• Metadata and documentation guidance – hands-on support in applying DDI schema; creation of machine-actionable metadata, data dictionaries, and codebooks to ensure FAIR compliance and long-term discoverability.

• Data harmonisation and integration – bespoke tools and services (in development) that facilitate variable mapping and cross-study alignment, enabling cumulative files and comparative analyses.

• Policy, licensing, and access management – development of governance frameworks, licence models, and service-desk workflows to streamline controlled access for sensitive data.

- Provides subject-matter and data-type expertise:

The available research expertise across both ADA and POLIS includes specific disciplinary knowledge in political science, public opinion, criminology and justice, Indigenous and First Nations research, social policy, and population health. Methodologically, ADA handles a wide range of data types, including quantitative survey microdata, qualitative and mixed-methods materials, longitudinal and panel datasets, administrative time-series, and historical statistical series, ensuring that each collection can receive tailored curation and access solutions.

- Belongs to international organisations (such as the International Federation of Data Organizations (IFDO) and the International Association of Social Science Information Service and Technology (IASSIST) and plays a major role in cross-national collaborative projects.

Designated Community

The ADA provides services to a wide variety of public, commercial and academic users in research, government and other sectors as designated communities. These communities are naturally reflected in the archive’s holdings. The largest group of users in the designated community is the academic cohort, consisting of students and academic researchers.

ADA is a specialist data repository focused on the social sciences. ADA defines this specialisation broadly, however, and can accept data from a wide range of related disciplines including humanities, arts, health, business and economics. It provides expert support across disciplines such as political science, criminology, Indigenous studies and related fields. A wide range of data types are supported, including quantitative, qualitative, longitudinal, time series and panel data, as well as historical statistics.

ADA serves a range of sectors, including public, commercial, and government sectors. However, its primary user base is the academic community—comprising students and researchers—whose research needs are closely aligned with the archive’s social science specialisation.

Level of Curation

Level of Curation Performed:

A. Content distributed as deposited

B. Basic curation – e.g., brief checking, addition of basic metadata or documentation

C. Enhanced curation – e.g., conversion to new formats, enhancement of documentation

D. Data-level curation – as in C above, but with additional editing of deposited data for accuracy

ADA applies a tiered curation model. All deposits receive at least Basic curation (B) to ensure confidentiality, accessibility, and sufficient documentation. We escalate to Enhanced curation (C) and to Data-level curation (D) where a dataset requires format conversion, documentation enhancement, or direct data edits to improve privacy or usability. In limited cases, content is distributed as deposited (A) when materials already meet ADA privacy and quality thresholds.

In consultation with the data custodian/ data depositor, the ADA archivist will make changes to the data ranging from edits, such as spelling corrections and label shortening, to aggregation and restricting of variables as required.

Depending on the data, Level C and D curation may include conversion of submitted materials to new file formats, including the creation of data files with subsets of the originally submitted data. It is possible for some sensitive datasets to have Non-Sensitive releasable sub-sets or versions. Where required, these are managed using different access strategies outlined in the ADA Data License agreement. Enhancement of documentation and metadata is also routinely undertaken by the ADA and can include generating original documentation such as data dictionaries.

Cooperation and outsourcing to third parties, partners and host organisations

The National Computational Infrastructure (NCI)

The NCI provide and house the platforms that the ADA use to deliver its service as well as providing storage locations for the long-term preservation of ADA data. The NCI is also managed by The ADA’s host institution, The Australian National University (ANU) with governance provided by the NCI Board, within the limits of the Statutes and Policies of the University. The NCI operates the fastest file systems in the Southern Hemisphere and is the nation’s most highly integrated, high performance research computing environment. Further information regarding the NCI Storage Systems can be found at http://nci.org.au/our-systems/storage-systems.

The NCI maintain VMWare and VM’s which run the ADA Dataverse servers and provide professional support via their helpdesk facility. ADA staff also have access to the NCI managed RDS; providing additional security when working remotely (for example during the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021).

The ADA collection is supported at NCI as a registered project and is supported under the ANU’s merit allocation. The ADA collection is therefore subject to the same mandates as all other NCI project scheme storage agreements as detailed at http://nci.org.au/users/nci-terms-and-conditions-access. The ADA agree to terms and conditions specified by NCI to use their services such as personal security around logins, user behaviour and other areas.

The Australian Consortium for Social & Political Research Inc (ACSPRI)

The ADA have an ‘as required’ contractual arrangement with ACSPRI to install, maintain, and support ADA software including the various ADA Dataverse applications, Metabase, and OSTicket task management and tracking application. The support also extends to the recovery of applications in the event of a loss of data.