The CDS has been certified as a Trustworthy Data Repository by the CoreTrustSeal.
CoreTrustSeal is a certification organisation that was announced in 2018 by the World Data System of the International Science Council (WDS) and the Data Seal of approval (DSA). CoreTrustSeal Data Repository certification replaces the DSA certification and WDS Regular Members certification.
The certification was first awarded in February 2019 and related specifically to the CDS VizieR catalogue service. The renewal of the certification has been awarded in March 2024, and is extended to include HiPS image surveys: Aladin
CoreTrustSeal certification is based on the DSA-WDS Core Trustworthy Data Repositories Requirements catalogue and procedures. This universal catalogue of requirements reflects the core characteristics of trustworthy data repositories and is the culmination of a cooperative effort between DSA and WDS under the umbrella of the Research Data Alliance to merge their data repositories certifications.
The CoreTrustSeal certification
- Gives researchers the assurance that their research results will be managed, curated, and archived in such a way as to preserve the initial investment in collecting them
- Provides research funding authorities confidence for continued access to data produced by the projects they fund
- Enables researchers to be certain that data held in archives remain useful and meaningful into the future
- Demonstrates to both their users and their funders that an independent authority has evaluated the data repository and endorsed their trustworthiness.
The CDS is a Regular Member of the World Data System (WDS), and the CoreTrustSeal certification follows our earlier certification by the Data Seal of Approval.
In the “Open Science” paradigm, the role of sustainable and trustable data repositories/services becomes more and more important for research. This has long been known from the astronomical community world-wide, and CDS has been providing reference data services for more than 50 years. The renewal of the CDS certification in the new CoreTrustSeal organisation reinforces the trust in our services, that is also demonstrated every day by their high level of usage by the community.