AUSSDA

As a national infrastructure for the social sciences, AUSSDA is responsible for archiving research data in accordance with the FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and making data accessible and usable for the scientific community. AUSSDA supports researchers in archiving and making their data available - this also corresponds to the research data governance policy of the University of Graz and the guidelines of most funding organisations. AUSSDA archives a variety of social science data, both quantitative and qualitative. Archived data sets and documentation material can be researched via the AUSSDA Dataverse digital repository(https://data.aussda.at) and obtained for secondary analyses. This benefits researchers as well as teachers, students and media professionals. Archiving and access to research data at AUSSDA is free of charge.

As an Austrian service provider, AUSSDA is integrated into the European research infrastructure CESSDA ERIC (Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives). Data sets archived at AUSSDA are thus also included in the European CESSDA Data Catalogue (https://datacatalogue.cessda.eu/) and thus become part of the European Open Science Cloud, EOSC(https://open-science-cloud.ec.europa.eu). AUSSDA has been certified with the Core Trust Seal as a trustworthy data repository since July 2020.

The University of Graz is one of eight AUSSDA consortium partners in Austria. The activities in Graz are based at the Centre for Social Research and the Institute of Sociology. The AUSSDA office in Graz is responsible for data acquisition in the regions of Styria, Carinthia and Burgenland and offers counselling and training in connection with social science research data management. Other focal points include accompanying research, the development of Open Educational Resources (OER) for social science methodology and the realisation of other priority projects.