Digital curation services
We support you in various ways beyond research data management. This includes making the following services available to you.
Publication and archiving of research data
With the new “Guidelines for Research Data Management at ETH Zurich” a retention period of at least 10 years becomes the rule for research data that are necessary for the validation of published research results. ETH Library’s Research Collection is a repository for research data. In the background, the data deposited in the Research Collection are preserved for the long term in the ETH Data Archive (except for data deposited via Libdrive).
Archiving other digital data
Collections of all kinds present their digitized content on the web to facilitate access to important sources while protecting their valuable originals. Preservation of the digital copies is often not the primary focus.
The ETH Data Archive makes a contribution here: It serves as a so-called “dark archive” for long-term preservation of digital copies, thus complementing the physical archiving of the original documents.
The ETH Data Archive is indispensable as a long-term archive for purely digital (“born digital”) documents. In addition to the dark archive functionality, it can also be used to display digital objects if no specific presentation platform is available.
Format knowledge and format recommendations
File formats play a crucial role in long-term archiving and implementation of preservation measures. If formats become obsolete, affected files must be migrated. We therefore constantly monitor developments (Technology Watch), analyse formats and make recommendations for format selection.
Software registration (ETH transfer)
The ETH Data Archive provides an interface for researchers to submit software for registration by ETH transfer.
Examples of platforms interfacing with the ETH Data Archive
Long-term preservation in the ETH Data Archive has already been implemented for the Research Collection, ETH Zurich’s publication platform as well as for ETH Library data from the platforms external page e-rara, external page e-manuscripta and on E-Pics for the Image Archive Online. Other digital holdings from platforms such as external page E-Periodica are to follow.
These services are also available to other interested parties from ETH Zurich.
The ETH Zurich University Archives store administrative documents worthy of archiving as well as the scientific personal papers of current and former professors of ETH Zurich and make them accessible to the public in compliance with legal requirements.
Archiving of electronic documents of the ETH Zurich University Archives is implemented in the ETH Data Archive. This also includes archiving and presentation of ETH Zurich websites. Administrative units that are required to provide records should continue to contact the ETH Zurich University Archives directly for archiving all types of documents and websites. Further information on preserving and making selected websites accessible can be found on the ETH Zurich Web Archive site.