Continuity of Service

Services Offered by the ADA

The Australian Data Archive offers three core services to our user community, in line with the OAIS model:

• Deposit of research data in line with our ADA collections policy [22] under a depositor agreement
• Preservation of deposited data [9]
• Curation of deposited research data at the data level [33] [34]
• Dissemination of curated data to data users at different access levels, subject to the terms and conditions of access specified by the Data-rights holder in the depositor agreement

Continuity: Planning and policies

The ADA has existed with the mission to obtain, archive and disseminate research data for secondary use since 1981 at the Australian National University (ANU). The ANU was established in 1946 by an act of the Federal Parliament of Australia, and thus is established as a long term institution. University structures are such that funding cycles and employment at the University are not available for publication in the public domain, however the ANU has provided core funding for the ADA since the inception of the ADA in 1981 (44 years), and its support is ongoing to this day. The ADA exists as an administrative unit within POLIS: The Centre for Social Policy Research [17]. POLIS is established as a Centre within the Research School of Social Sciences at the ANU and is covered by ANU Policy on Centres and Institutes [41]. The ADA core mission is embedded in that of the long term strategic plan of POLIS.

As a unit within the ANU we rely upon the institutional obligations of The University for both long term continuity and infrastructure support. With specific reference to data preservation, the data holdings would be transferred to the ANU Archive to provide continuity of the collection under The ANU Archive Collection Policy for records of continuing value. ADA can also return data holdings to the owners in the unlikely event of its cessation, as. The ADA does not have agreements currently with other archives or institutions outside of the ANU for provision of data in the event of its cessation.

References

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

[17] The Centre for Social Policy Research (POLIS) – (https://csrm.cass.anu.edu.au/)

[33] Quality Assurance – (https://docs.ada.edu.au/index.php/Quality_Assurance)

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

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

[41] ANU Policy on Centres and Institutes – (https://policies.anu.edu.au/ppl/document/ANUP_012009)