International certification for DataFirst

The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) research data service DataFirst has become the only internationally-certified African repository, after being awarded a CoreTrustSeal endorsement earlier this month.

CoreTrustSeal is a new certification organisation announced by the ICSU World Data System (WDS) and the Data Seal of Approval (DSA), which have merged their data repositories certification under the umbrella of the Research Data Alliance.

DataFirst offers researchers online access to survey and administrative microdata from South Africa and other African countries, assisting them via an online helpdesk and other formal training courses in microdata analysis. DataFirst also trains African data managers in microdata curation, and conducts research on the quality and usability of South African microdata.