Our mission, vision, and values are integral to our strategic framework, which guides the projects we undertake and partnerships we engage in.
Mission
As professional data curators we empower researchers to publish high quality data in an ethical and FAIR way.
As a network we collaboratively advance the art and science of data curation by creating, adopting, and openly sharing best practices.
As part of the broader data sharing community we support thoughtful, innovative, and inclusive data curation training and professional development opportunities.
As an organization we will grow the DCN in a sustainable and responsive way.
Vision
We strive to be a trusted community-led network of curators advancing open research by making data more ethical, reusable, and understandable.
Values
Trusted – Collaborative – Open – Inclusive – Empowering
What is data curation? Data curation enables data discovery and retrieval, maintains data quality, adds value, and provides for re-use over time through activities including authentication, archiving, metadata creation, digital preservation, and transformation. Data curators collaborate with researchers to share data ethically and in ways that are findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR).
Why the Data Curation Network? Data curation skills span a wide variety of data types and discipline-specific data formats such as spatial data, code, databases, chemical spectra, 3D images, and genomic sequencing data. Each repository alone cannot reasonably account for all the curation expertise needed. As a Network, we pool our data curation experts to collectively, and more efficiently, curate a wider variety of data types (e.g., discipline, file format, etc.) that expands beyond what any single institution might offer alone.
The Data Curation Network is supported by our current members and grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (Primary Award: G-2018-10072; Planning Award: G-2016-7044) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (Workshop Series: RE-85-18-0040-18).