Best Practices

Data-PASS has issued general policy statements.

Data-PASS has documented its specific policies and procedures for identifying, acquiring, preserving, and sharing data at-risk of being lost to the social science research community. Links to these policies and procedures are found below.

  • Articles of Collaboration (PDF 2.49M)
    October 13, 2005
    Original collaborative agreement for the Data-PASS partnership.
    Replaced by DataPass MOU, 2015 (PDF), 
  • Content Selection (PDF 28K)
    December 12, 2005
    Information that provides general guidance to project staff as they seek to identify and review potential acquisitions.
  • Appraisal (PDF 21K)
    February 9, 2005
    Information that provides guidance on the appraisal of new materials identified by the partnership.
  • Acquisition (PDF 24K)
    February 21, 2006
    Standards for the work processes associated with the acquisition and common catalog tasks.
  • Metadata (PDF 73K)
    December 15, 2007
    Standards that are being used to allow for information so it can be included in a shared catalog and made available to shared systems.
  • Metadata Copyright & License
    January 2, 2013
    Copyright and license information for the Data-PASS public catalog metadata.
  • Confidentiality (PDF 41K)
    April 3, 2007
    Policies to maintain data confidentiality of materials acquired for the Data-PASS project.
  • Data Security (PDF 19K)
    Standards for the security of materials acquired for the Data-PASS project.
  • Guide to Handling Fragile Materials (PDF 44K)
    Guidelines for Handling Fragile Materials (e.g. punched cards, magnetic tape, etc.) for Purposes of Data Recovery.
  • Data Deposit Agreement (PDF 76K)
    May 18, 2006
    Agreement that grants permission for Data-PASS, through its Partners, to archive and distribute data collections.
  • Appraisal and Acquisition of Actively Curated Collections (PDF 19K)
    December 6, 2007
    Guidelines for appraising and acquiring actively curated collections.
  • Data Identification Inventory and Checklists (Word 53K)
    Inventory and checklist for identifying and reviewing data collections.