A key part of the UK Data Service is to ensure the data received from researchers, survey subjects and government departments are formatted, contextualised and enriched in a way which ensures they are as usable as possible to researchers, while any curatorial decisions retain the purity of the original deposited data. remain transparent to iran rcs data the data producers and users to ensure the archival phase of the data lifecycle is valued and trusted. Essentially, there must be a trust relationship between all players in these activities: researchers must trust that archivists are giving them the ‘right’ data, and data owners and producers must trust that the archivists are not damaging the integrity of their data.
Broadly, this is what the UK Data Service does every day. While many of our behind-the-scenes processes may be invisible to researchers, they are foundations necessary to support the needs of data producers, data users, funders and policy makers. In contrast with some of the giant datasets (such as earth observation satellites), social science data require more than simply looking after the bits and ensuring that file formats remain readable over time. An organisation hoping to support continued access to resources while keeping them understandable must be prepared to provide sufficient context not only in terms of documentation but also by defining how the data are related to each other.