(8 Oct 2020) COAR is very pleased to announce the release of the COAR Community Framework for Best Practices in Repositories.
The purpose of the framework is to assist repositories in evaluating and improving their current operations based on a set of applicable and achievable good practices.
Currently, there are a number of existing frameworks and evaluation criteria that were developed to assist repositories in assessing certain facets of their operations (such as discovery, access, reuse, integrity, quality assurance, preservation, privacy, and sustainability), but these criteria are spread across different organizations and are often relevant for only one region or one type of repository.
The aim of this work was to bring together relevant criteria into a global, multidimensional framework for assessing best practices that can be adopted and used by different types of repositories (publication, institutional, data, etc.) and in different geographical and thematic contexts.
The framework was developed by the COAR Repository Assessment Working Group and was subsequently shared with the COAR community and affiliated networks for validation and feedback from repository managers around the world, representing different regions, repository types, and domains. Input from the community consultation was then incorporated into this public version of the framework.
In the coming months, COAR will be providing links to relevant information and guidance to help repositories adopt the good practices contained in the framework. Additionally, COAR will review and update the framework on an annual basis.
The announcement and link to the Community Framework are here.