Mari Kleemola to join international CoreTrustSeal Board
FSD’s Development Manager Mari Kleemola has been appointed to the CoreTrustSeal organisation’s Board for the term 2018-2021. Concurrently, Kleemola was also appointed CTS Board Secretary. The CTS Board includes 12 members who represent data repositories from all around the world archiving data from a variety of scientific fields.
CoreTrustSeal (CTS) is an international certification that informs researchers about the reliability of repositories storing digital data. The CTS Board handles the development and maintenance of the CoreTrustSeal certification criteria and processes. The Board also issues the certificate to data repositories. A CTS certificate requires that all phases of digital data storage are handled reliably, from receiving data from researchers to ensuring its proper long-term preservation.
The Finnish Social Science Data Archive received the CTS certificate in August 2017, among the first in the whole world. The certificate is valid during 2017-2019. The CTS certificate’s predecessor, the Data Seal of Approval (DSA), had already been issued to FSD for years 2014-2017.
In total, over 130 CoreTrustSeals and its predecessors have been issued internationally. Interest toward the certification is also constantly increasing.