D6.1 - Consolidated requirements

The FIDELIS project - “Establishing A European Network of Trustworthy Digital Repositories” -  aims to establish a self-sustaining network of trustworthy digital repositories (TDRs) that will foster a supportive open science environment and support FAIR data sharing in the future. 

FAIR data, metadata, and other FAIR digital objects are essential components of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). They are typically cared for and made accessible through data sources, including repositories. Due to the wide range of data custodians, repository types, authorities and scenarios involved, a single set of granular and globally applicable indicators for trustworthiness is not practical or desirable. Using the Transparent Trustworthy Repository Attributes Matrix (TTRAM) as a starting point, this report focuses on consolidated requirements and defines the key factors that repositories and authority bodies need to have in place to assess and assign trustworthiness of repositories. A key prerequisite is the provision of clear and transparent expectations by trust authorities. In addition, information artefacts need to be available at an agreed level of capability-maturity and transparency.

Guidance for specialist, domain and disciplinary as well as generalist repositories is provided in the form of populated TTRAM templates. Together with mappings of TTRAM activities and functions to existing requirements and standards, they support repositories in managing alignment with a wide range of potential assessment criteria. 

Repositories will need to continuously improve their practices, for example, move from prose to structured metadata that provide more machine-actionable attributes and increase the degree of transparency of their information artefacts. At the same time, the sustainable implementation, maintenance, and further development of repository practices require a sufficiently stable and predictable operating environment together with clarity regarding the expectations, obligations, and requirements placed upon repositories.