Social Data: CESSDA Best Practices

The European Commission report “Turning FAIR into reality” provides an index of 27 FAIR Action Plan recommendations. This index is used for a self-assessment on CESSDA, the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives. CESSDA is performing well on “Concepts for FAIR implementation”, “Skills for FAIR”, and “Investment in FAIR”; there is work in progress on “FAIR culture”, and work to start up on “FAIR ecosystem” and especially on “Incentives and metrics for FAIR data and services”. Next, an analysis on the FAIR components, reveals that CESSDA has accomplished the “F”, is working on the “A” – considering the sensitivity and security requirements of social data, just started on “I”, and that there is lack of clarity on what should be in “R”. On Findability, the CESSDA Data Catalogue is explained, showing the building blocks that need to be in place before one can produce a catalogue. The article ends with a forward look on CESSDA's deployment on the FAIR principles.