WP4

Already in its first report (D4.3.1 Trust Establishment) on trust EUDAT stressed the important role of trust relationships for successful data services and already sketched the landscape of trust aspects of a research infrastructure’s services.

The main results and latest insights can be sunmmarised as follows:

  • Through the introduction of larger, shared data infrastructures, the relation between data users and creators has become more anonymous and as a consequence trust has to be provided in more explicit ways.
  • Trust is the key to unlock the value of data in a collaborative infrastructure since both the willingness of the data creator to provide data and that of the consumer to trust and use it, depends on that.
  • European infrastructures are hampered by cultural differences with respect to trust. We learned, that the same problem exists of course between different communities. Traditions play an important role.
  • Persistence (and so the sustainability) of data management services to the user e.g. data access and supporting services are of great relevance.
  • A number of important trust related data management concepts were identified as Persistence, Identity, Authenticity.
  • The identification within RIs of “Islands of trust” as preferred relations between (part-of) communities and specific (groups of centers) and “chains of trust” as the principle by which the trust in a certain data management process depends on the trust of all involved processes and as a result that trust can be compromised by the weakest link in the chain.

In this second report EUDAT aims to synthesize the different trust related concepts, components and services into a (EUDAT) trust model that should enable devising a strategy to increase trust levels as perceived by users and preferably also verifiable by audits.