Digital repositories operate in a diverse environment, and user needs are changing faster than ever. This makes transparency and demonstrating the trustworthiness of our work increasingly important.
The Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD) is contributing to the development of the Transparent Trustworthy Repository Attributes Matrix (TTRAM) as part of the FIDELIS project. A key aim of this work has been to better understand how making the range of repository activities and functions more transparent can help build trust.
TTRAM is not a test, an assignment or an application to join the FIDELIS network, and there are no right or wrong answers when completing it. On the contrary, the purpose of the TTRAM matrix is simply to bring together a repository's key activities and functions and the relationships between them, in a consistent manner.
The activities and functions included in the TTRAM matrix are shown below.
TTRAM activities and functions (Source: FIDELIS TTRAMatrix v01.00 Guide)
Completing the TTRAM matrix
As part of the FIDELIS project, FSD participated in a working group whose members completed the TTRAM matrix to reflect their respective organisations. In addition to FSD, the group included repositories from the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
As a leading expert in ensuring long-term access to digital research data, FSD needs not only an innovative approach but also carefully considered, consistent and documented practices, as well as transparency in its operations. Completing the TTRAM matrix provided an opportunity to examine these activities and responsibilities systematically and as a whole.
What did completing the matrix reveal about FSD and its operations?
For me, a key benefit was the opportunity to look at our work from a new perspective. TTRAM served as a kind of checklist for our key activities. Many everyday practices are so well established that we rarely stop to consider their wider significance in our daily work. Completing the TTRAM helped me see how interconnected practices, activities and expertise come together to form and maintain a strong foundation for FSD's work.
Collaboration plays a key role
Building an overall picture when completing TTRAM required input from experts across the organisation. No one person knows everything about technical solutions, administrative practices, data management or long-term preservation.
TTRAM highlighted how closely FSD's different activities are connected. The services we provide to our users depend on a range of activities behind the scenes. Trust is not built on a single system or process, but through the joint work of many experts. We are, of course, already familiar with this through our quality work and, for example, our CoreTrustSeal certification.
Participating in the working group also demonstrated the importance of international collaboration. Working with repositories from different countries provided an opportunity to look at our own work from different but comparable perspectives and to identify new practices. It also reinforced the view that repositories face many similar challenges, regardless of their country or repository type.
How can TTRAM benefit FSD's users?
The working group recommends TTRAM as a tool for repositories to review their own activities. FSD's mission is to make available, curate and preserve research data collected to study Finnish society, people and cultural phenomena over the long term. This requires, for example, reliable technical infrastructure, the maintenance of staff expertise, collaboration networks and quality management. TTRAM provides our users and partners with an easy way to gain an overall picture of the archive's key activities.
Completing the TTRAM matrix did not so much reveal new activities as highlight the overall framework that enables FSD to operate as a trustworthy repository. At the same time, it provided a way to consider how we can communicate our work more openly to users and partners.
Further information
- TTRAM matrices completed by FSD and other members of the working group: Finnish Social Science Data Archive - FIDELIS Transparent Trustworthy Repository Attributes Matrix (Zenodo)
- Chapter 3 of the FIDELIS project report (Zenodo) describes the working group's experiences in more detail.
- FIDELIS TTRAMatrix v01.00 Guide (Zenodo)
- Interactive TTRAM matrix (FIDELIS project website)
- Current FIDELIS training opportunities: FIDELIS Training & Support programme
Henna Kaartinen
Project Assistant in the FIDELIS project and member of the TTRAM working group
firstname.lastname [at] tuni.fi
