Community-based catalogue of requirements for trustworthy Technical Repository Service Providers (TRSPs)

25 October 2023 UTC 09:30 - 11:00 | AT 11:30 - 13:00 | RDA P21 Breakout Session 4

Click here for collaborative session notes

The proposed BoF will discuss the need for and potential establishment of an RDA WG to produce a community-based catalogue of requirements for trustworthy Technical Repository Service Providers (TRSPs). Currently, the CoreTrustSeal (CTS) addresses the certification demand from domain/subject-based and generic repositories that provide active preservation of digital objects for the long-term (TDRs). There is increasing demand for assessment, peer review and recognition from those delivering data curation, storage, and access services, and also a need to better define these services, and a wider range of TRSPs that support repository functions and activities. The existing CoreTrustSeal requirements could therefore be elaborated in order to form a basis for a CoreTrustSeal assessment and certification procedure that would allow TSPs to demonstrate compliance based on the range of services they provide. This will also advance the data repository community in the EOSC and beyond.

TRSPs are an important group of stakeholders as they offer products and services which either directly provide technical systems or otherwise provide partnership and support to repository services. These actors have always been a critical part of the data eco-system and this WG will work to serve their needs. The creation of such a catalogue of requirements would complement the current portfolio of CTS repositories and would potentially streamline the process of certifying TDRs. 

The proposed output of the WG:

• Produce a Catalogue of requirements, starting from the 16 CTS requirements;

• Development of Assessment process -es, including compliance levels/minimum expectations;

The existing CoreTrustSeal Requirements and evidence expectations will be explored for their applicability, with the intention to elaborate and/or extend them to generate a set of requirements and an associated assessment process. 

Alongside the requirements and differentiated assessment process, the group would also consider levels of compliance and any minimum expectations that should be applied. The group is open to considering perspectives from other trustworthy certification standards, best practices, and principles to represent various global viewpoints, as is indicated in the list of work that the group will build on below.

The BoF meeting will give a chance to discuss the above, the proposed WG draft Case Statement (in production, accessible here), discuss potential outputs, and identify parties who wish to co-chair the WG.

The discussion of the Case Statement draft will include a focus on the section ‘Engagement With Existing Work in the Area’, in particular how the proposed WG plans to build on existing and ongoing work; this will include work done within RDA and also from a European and global perspective.

Linked to this will be a discussion on how the proposed group and its activities will contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As part of the draft Case Statement, the Goal(s) to which this group’s activities contribute will have been identified, with further discussion planed on how the group’s outputs can contribute to their global implementation.