Texas Data Repository - National Transportation Library Conformant Data Repository

Abstract

In 2018, I started the process of submitting the Texas Data Repository (TDR) to the National Transportation Library (NTL) for inclusion in its list of data repositories conformant with the US Department of Transportation's (DOT) Public Access Plan. The NTL has a list of guidelines that a repository must meet before it can be included. These guidelines are based on the 16 CoreTrustSeal requirements "which are intended to reflect the characteristics of trustworthy repositories." As a team, we had to document TDR's conformance, preferably using public facing documentation (e.g. FAQs), for each of the 16 different requirements. The effort began in earnest in March and the final documentation was delivered to NTL on December 13, 2018. The DOT's Public Access Plan was published in 2015 and covers all DOT employees and awardees from non-DOT organizations working under a DOT grant, contract, or other agreement. As part of this plan, all publications must be submitted to the NTL digital repository (ROSA-P). Similarly, all data (to the extent feasible) must "be stored and publically accessible for search, retrieval, and analysis." When seeking funding from the DOT, research proposals "must include a supplementary document labeled "Data Management Plan" (DMP)." In this DMP, researchers outline their strategy(ies) to deposit digital data sets in a repository that enables and allows for search, retrieval, and analysis. Since the TDR has been certified by the NTL as conformant (awaiting documentation from the NTL attesting to this 1/22/19), DOT-funded researchers at the TDR member institutions will be able to use the TDR and its services in the DMP. In my presentation, I plan to 1) inform the wider community of TDR's conformance; and 2) describe the steps taken to show conformance.