Data Deposit User Guide [DRAFT]

About Data Deposit

Agencies and organizations that manage data archives may receive data and metadata from multiple sources. It is important to organize these data deposits to:

• Ensure that all necessary data and metadata are provided
• Minimize the costs of receiving and documenting the datasets for publication
• Maintain information on what is deposited, by whom, and when
• Provide the person or agency who deposits the data with the opportunity to inform the data archive about access restrictions
• Provide the depositor with a “receipt” indicating what has been deposited

The Data Deposit tool is DDI-compliant, open-source software which can be used as part of the NADA package or as a stand-alone tool. It will be useful to agencies that want to implement a simple, user-friendly, yet powerful and secure on-line system for acquiring datasets.

Data Deposit Frontend

This is the part of the application that is used by the depositors to deposit metadata and/or data.

A data deposit project is composed of:

• Project information
• Detailed project description based on the DDI fields. The form includes over 50+ fields. However, there are only 3 require fields that the user must fill, rest are optional
• File uploads - for uploading data files, questionnaires, reports and any other documentation
• Citations
• Data classification

Once a project is submitted, it is locked for any further changes. The system emails receipt of the data deposit to the depositor and the site administrators recieve notification of a new deposit.

Data Deposit Site Admin (backend)

Data Deposit includes a backend for managing projects submitted by users. To access the backend, go to Site adminstration > Data Deposit or navigate to the URL admin/datadeposit.

The data deposit admin provides the following features:

• Assign a project to another admin for processing
• Process/review submitted projects
• Export the project to DDI/XML
• Contact depositor for questions or additional information