How are data archives modernizing their platforms for FAIRness and sustainability?

Panelists: Maggie Levenstein (Director, ICPSR), Steve McEachern (Director, UKData), and tbd (hopefully Skit(Norway)). Moderator: Jeannette Jackson (Managing Director, Research Data Ecosystem, ICPSR)

Explore how ICPSR and UKData are modernizing their software platforms to ensure data is FAIR and to enable researchers to remain at the forefront of social science research, making new scientific discoveries possible. Importantly, modernizing these software platforms helps future-proof these institutions, ensuring they are flexible and extensible enough to support different data types and advancing interconnected social science research. Additionally, we will share how this modernization contributes to the long-term sustainability of data archives.

The panel structure will include a 10-15 minute presentation by each panelist (depending on whether there are 2 or 3 panelists). During their presentations, panelists will discuss their current user and technical challenges, the steps they are taking to address these challenges through software modernization, and how this work contributes to the organization's long-term sustainability.

Following the presentations, there will be a 15-minute moderated discussion among the panelists, focusing on shared challenges and opportunities in infrastructure and service development, approaches to data deposit and cataloging methods, and strategies for curation flow, particularly concerning standardization or innovation in curation processes. The session will conclude with a 15-minute audience Q&A.