Strengthening Repository Practices: Experiences and Outcomes from the FIDELIS TTRAM workshops

Strengthening Repository Practices: Experiences and Outcomes from the FIDELIS TTRAM workshops Implementation Story 1 Implementation Story - #1 Authors FIDELIS Authors ٩Henna Kaartinen, CESSDA/TAU-FSD ٩Tuomas J. Alaterä, CESSDA/TAU-FSD Participants co-authors ٩Amela Kurta, Data Archive for Social Sciences in Bosnia and Herzegovina ٩Damien Sans, Recherche Data Gou ٩Dieuwertje Bloemen, KU Leuven ٩Erwan Guillou, Recherche Data Gouv ٩Fen Zhang, KU Leuven ٩Ioana Maria Cortea, National Institute of Research and Development for Optoelectronics ٩Jitka Stilund Hansen, Technical University of Denmark ٩Katrine Flindt Holmstrand, Technical University of Denmark ٩Kimm Caroline Termansen, Technical University of Denmark ٩Marijana Dražić, University of Belgrade ٩Marijana Glavica, Croatian Social Science Data Archive, ٩Mateusz Pawlik, University of Salzburg (Austrian NeuroCloud), ٩Rachele Ricceri, KU Leuven Lead Experts of the Support Offer: ٩Hervé L’Hours, UK Data Service ٩Mari Kleemola, Finnish Social Science Data Archive ٩Oliver Parkes, UK Data Service Related TTRAM element(s): TTRAM in general and self-selected sections Support offer Support for the Adoption of Solutions | Enhancing Repository Transparency and Trustworthiness with TTRAM Abstract The TTRAM support introduced the Transparent Trustworthy Repository Attributes Matrix and focused on key sections: Context, Digital Object Management, and Organisational Infrastructure. Participants engaged in expert-led discussions, peer exchange, and populating the matrix, supported both during and between sessions. The support offer fostered collaboration, improved understanding of TTRAM, and helped repositories identify strengths, gaps, and practical steps for development. Overall, participants valued the training, achieved their goals, and regarded TTRAM as a useful framework for enhancing services and practices. 2 Implementation Story - #1  Introduction The Transparent Trustworthy Repository Attributes Matrix (TTRAM) pilot support offer highlighted the benefits TTRAM brings organisations, particularly in assisting repositories with managing digital objects, strengthening organisational infrastructure, and technology and security management. During the workshops, participants had the opportunity to engage directly with the TTRAM developers (experts), the support facilitator and other participating organisations, fostering dialogue and collaboration. The support offer ran from October 6 to November 25, 2025. The content of the pilot support offer included four workshops which introduced TTRAM, facilitated peer discussions and provided expert guidance, and ended with a final workshop featuring peer exchange activities, a wrap-up session, and the start of working on the Implementation Story together. After familiarising themselves with TTRAM, participants selected sections of the Matrix to work on in more depth in between the workshops. Participants could choose either of the main sections of the TTRAM template: Context, Digital Object Management, or Organisational Infrastructure. In the workshops, participants discussed their progress and encountered challenges and received expert support to take their next steps. users Participants A total of 9 participants from different countries and repositories joined this pilot support offer with teams of various sizes, culminating in a total of 16 individual people supported. The Higher Education and Science Information Technology Shared Service Centre VPC | Latvia | Discipline-agnostic | VPC hoped to advance their own knowledge of the TTRAM framework and learn about the practical steps they could take in the way they manage the repository in order to assure transparency and trustworthiness. ٩Recherche Data Gouv | France | Discipline-agnostic | The platform aims to become a trustworthy digital repository according to EOSC-FIDELIS, and sees TTRAMatrix as one part of the process alongside networking with other repositories. ٩National Institute of Research and Development for Optoelectronics | Romania | Natural sciences; Humanities | The National Institute of Research and Development for Optoelectronics believed that this support offer will help them to enhance the transparency, reliability, and sustainability of their data service (INFRA-ART Spectral Library), build trust with their users and partners and also provide a clear roadmap for future development and possible certifications, while connecting with a wider network of repositories and experts. ٩Austrian NeuroCloud | Austria | Social sciences; Natural sciences | Austrian NeuroCloud hoped to understand what they can achieve with TTRAM, especially recognise their strengths and areas for improvement in becoming a TDR. They would also like to understand how much domain specificity influences the TTRAM model. ٩Data Archive for Social Sciences in Bosnia and Herzegovina (DASS-BiH) | Bosnia and Herzegovina | Social Sciences; Humanities | DASS-BiH believed that support offer will directly strengthen their workflow by deepening their understanding of repository transparency and its link to trustworthiness, building on their previous experience with FAIR-IMPACT recommendations, gives the opportunity to work with TTRAM developers and peer repositories and strengthen their ability to build trust with our designated community in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ٩Technical University of Denmark (DTU Data) | Denmark | Natural sciences, Engineering and technology; Agricultural sciences; Medical and health sciences | DTU Data believed that engaging in the TTRAM pilot support offer can be of great importance for their services, helping to consolidate processes and develop competences related to long-term preservation, providing inspiration on how to better support archival of unpublished research data, and updating knowledge on security management. ٩KU Leuven | Belgium | Discipline-agnostic | KU Leuven aimed to familiarise themselves with TTRAM, explore how they can enhance transparency within their own institutional repository and contribute to the development of TTRAM to improve their researchers’ ability to evaluate trustworthiness of external repositories. ٩University of Belgrade | Serbia | Social sciences; Humanities | The University of Belgrade expected that after participating in this programme, they would be able to better explain to their colleagues how important repository transparency is, and why it is safer to deposit their works in the institutional repository rather than upload them to academic social networks. ٩Croatian Social Science Data Archive (CROSSDA) | Croatia | Social Sciences | CROSSDA is a national public research infrastructure for the social science data and a Service Provider for CESSDA ERIC. They hoped that the TTRAM will help with organisation and creation of the documentation that is essential for the data archive’s operations and its long term sustainability. They believe that transparent and detailed information about the policies and procedures under which the data archive operates is the fundamental mechanism for building trust between the archive, its users and funders. 3 Implementation Story - #1  Approach taken The support offer consisted of a combination of workshops, independent work on selected TTRAM sections, group discussions, expert guidance, and peer exchange. Participants’ own interests and the TTRAM sections most relevant to them were considered. The content and activities of the workshops were designed to be useful from the participants’ perspective. The working methods were adjusted to meet participants’ needs as effectively as possible, for example by allowing independent work on the implementation story and by including topics that interested them or raised questions. Participants were also offered the opportunity to continue networking with other participants by exchanging contact information. The goal of the support offer was to support participants to strengthen their role as Trustworthy Digital Repositories by: ٩Enabling deeper understanding of TTRAM, which supports coherent and reusable information collection. ٩Improving understanding of different repository types and curation practices. ٩Facilitating structured, easily shareable information for further use. ٩Supporting the creation of a functional network of mutual support and aligned practices among repositories. ٩Broadening the understanding on how to deploy, populate and expand TTRAM. ٩Helping to recognise strengths of TTRAM, or areas for improvement. alarm-exclamation Challenges and lessons learned Peer exchange was facilitated during the final workshop, which was structured to ensure that all participants had the opportunity to respond in turn and receive expert support as needed. Participants were asked to reflect on a selection of questions, which were designed based on insights from previous workshops and group discussions and focused on challenges, strengths, and envisioned next steps. A common challenge that was noted related to assessing the content of TTRAM, such as finding it difficult to determine whether the information in the spreadsheet was sufficient or what should be written in variables and columns. They also mentioned that it was not always clear how Levels of Retention, Curation and Preservation (LoRCAP) is related to all Activities and Functions (A|F) or what is in scope for each A|F. In addition, participants reflected on the purpose of TTRAM, including its role in certifications like CoreTrustSeal. ٮRecherche Data Gouv: (i) although TTRAM and CoreTrustSeal are aligned, validating the first does not necessarily imply validating the second. (ii) while trying my best to fill the matrix using our repository’s documentation elements, I realised how much more work we have to do to achieve transparency as our peers (TTRAM designers) defined it. ٮAustrian NeuroCloud: Reviewing TTRAM helped us to identify the gaps in transparency - insufficient information and areas which we have not thought about before. Filling TTRAM may be time consuming, especially when the information has to be newly composed or gathered from multiple resources. However, we believe that the investment will pay off in the long run. Moreover, during the action we could learn from other repositories and their views on TTRAM’s Activities and Functions. ٮDASS-BiH: Participation provided DASS-BiH with valuable insights into the structure, coherence, and accessibility of our internal documentation. Working with TTRAM enabled us to systematically map where different pieces of information are located across our existing policies, internal procedures, and operational workflows. This process highlighted the extent to which essential information was scattered across documents and platforms, and it allowed us to consolidate these elements into a single, comprehensive matrix that supports clearer internal navigation and improved transparency. The exercise also proved highly beneficial for our upcoming CoreTrustSeal recertification. By comparing workflow practices with the TTRAM criteria, we identified several areas where our policies required updates to accurately reflect current procedures. This early detection will allow us to incorporate necessary revisions proactively, strengthening alignment between documented processes and actual practice. More broadly, we see TTRAM as a strategic tool that helps repositories reflect on trustworthiness from the perspective of different stakeholder groups and across different service scopes, whether operating as an internal institutional repository, a domain-specific repository, or a nationallevel research infrastructure. The framework encouraged us to think more systematically about how expectations shift depending on these roles and how transparency mechanisms can be adapted accordingly. 4 Implementation Story - #1 ٮNational Institute of Research and Development for Optoelectronics: Participating in this support action helped us clarify several internal considerations. Many of the key questions we explored revolved around: What should we make transparent? How should this information be exposed, and where? What is the minimum set of information that should be made publicly available? Is the information we expose useful for our users, or does it primarily serve other stakeholders? The exercise helped us better understand which information truly needs to be made transparent and which is optional or context-dependent (based on our internal priorities). It also encouraged us to look more closely at what we share, how we share it, why we share it, and who the information is intended for. ٮTechnical University of Denmark: Working with the TTRAM is a great way to overview current documentation and transparency. The introductions and discussions with the pilot creators and participants were extremely useful to start working with the TTRAM ourselves. Because of the extent and seemingly complexity of the TTRAM, good guidance is needed. The pilot raised the question: ‘What is a trusted repository?’ There is no single answer to this, however, if you want to provide a trustworthy service, different stakeholders must be able to find relevant information about your service. ٮKU Leuven: TTRAM offers a method of creating an (internal) overview of repository features related to trustworthiness. As such, filling the TTRAM in was a useful exercise to determine if all information is available and easy to find. We quickly learned that most of this information is available somewhere, but not necessarily easy to find. Once we realised this during the support action, we also evaluated if all information should be easy to find, as it can be quite overwhelming for researchers. Therefore, the support action was a good exercise in not only getting an overview of what information is where, but also what information should be put forward as essential to different types of users or readers of the repository documentation. ٮUniversity of Belgrade: After a pilot it is clearer which data in the repository need to be transparent. I realised that other repositories face similar challenges and that’s a big relief. TTRAM represents lifelong learning. ٮCROSSDA: TTRAM highlighted that while we may know our procedures internally, translating them into the structured format required by this tool is necessary to prove our reliability to external stakeholders. shield-check Impact Overall, participants considered the goals of the pilot support offer important, such as bringing several repositories together and putting TTRAM to the test by trying to harmonise the information they share. TTRAM was perceived as being able to serve as a practical guideline for self-assessment, helping participants examine their practices more critically. Some participants also highlighted that the pilot was a good way to introduce their newest colleague to internal processes. Other participants noted that after the pilot, it became easier to communicate to users what data are important for the repository while using it. The value of TTRAM was also seen in identifying the Activities and Functions that truly matter to users and prioritising improvements that genuinely enhance their experience, such as enabling the user community to access resources with confidence and reuse datasets easily. Participants emphasised that improved knowledge also facilitates collaboration, as it helps repositories become more attractive to stakeholders and funders. While some participants did not identify a clear achievement, they felt the pilot training definitely helped them realise what still needs to be accomplished. Participants indicated that TTRAM can be useful when building a new repository, for example for facilitating discussions about the repository service of each joining university. It was also seen as a useful tool and guidance for new repositories when they start learning what information is relevant and how to structure it, especially before they are ready to certify. TTRAM was also seen as a useful framework for assessing what is relevant information to researchers and what is relevant information to different audiences. Some participants intended to use TTRAM as part of the CoreTrustSeal certification process for internal discussions. The pilot support offer inspired participants to develop their own practices, such as creating or improving an existing handbook to make it more clear and user-friendly, or reviewing repository guides as well as terms and conditions. Some participants were still considering what they could do with TTRAM in the future. 5 Implementation Story - #1 ✅ Key messages and advice For (aspiring) Trustworthy Digital Repositories, it can be essential to understand the Activities and Functions of your service and how trust can be fostered by transparently sharing information. Some key messages to take into consideration when adopting this approach: ŴRecherche Data Gouv: My advice, (i) As a disclaimer to participants : The TTRAM as a table/matrix, could be pretty intimidating. There are a lot of elements (30 A|F), and it is asked of us to fill 3 boxes (a general one and 2 variables); but although it seems tedious, a lot of informations do overlap from an A|F to the other, it is just made this way so it is more accessible for potential readers. My advice is just: “keep calm and carry on”, in the end, it will all make sense while doing it. (ii) To the organisation team: Do not underestimate the power or aestheticism, making the table/matrix less ugly could make it easier to dive in. Those 30 lines of actions and functions are really intimidating, I am pretty sure filling a booklet would do the trick. PS : the pdf documentation was really helpful. ŴNational Institute of Research and Development for Optoelectronics: The key message would be to use the TTRAM as a flexible guidance tool—something that helps you assess gaps, spark reflection, support internal discussions, and plan your next steps. Focus on the areas that matter most for your data service or repository, and consider which realistic improvements make sense for your context, users, mission, and priorities. When approached as a ‘pick-andmix’ tool, it can help you concentrate on the areas that are most relevant and useful to your context. ŴAustrian NeuroCloud: TTRAM is a great tool to review, structure, and plan your documentation, especially during the early stages of building a repository. I believe that using TTRAM as a baseline may save time later, when other stakeholders, like registries, funding agencies or certification authorities, ask for similar information. ŴDASS-BiH: Be prepared to invest time in completing the TTRAM matrix, as the process is detailed and requires careful input across many elements. However, this effort pays off: once filled in, the matrix provides a clear and unified view of your repository, making it much easier to understand how policies, workflows, and functions interrelate. TTRAM is also a strong starting point for preparing for external evaluations such as CoreTrustSeal, helping repositories identify gaps and needed updates early in the process. Looking ahead, we hope that the community will move toward a single, standardised, and interoperable tool like TTRAM. Instead of repeatedly entering information into multiple frameworks, it would be highly beneficial to have one tool capable of exchanging data across platforms, reducing duplication and making trustworthiness assessment more efficient. ŴTechnical University of Denmark: Research infrastructures often suffer from lack of documentation and resources to support their sustainability. The TTRAM supports a repository in becoming a trustworthy infrastructure for researchers and universities. ŴKU Leuven: TTRAM can be a useful tool to get an overview of your repository’s trustworthiness, but specifically using TTRAM to assess the internally and externally available documentation of this trustworthiness. Due to its overlap with other frameworks of trustworthiness, such as certification frameworks like CoreTrustSeal, it is perhaps not as useful to determine how trustworthy a repository is, but it can be helpful as an exercise to evaluate all available documentation and information and identify gaps in a repository’s documentation. ŴUniversity of Belgrade: TTRAM helped me to see what information repositories already have, in regard to trustworthy and transparency, and on which topics we have to work more and make them more user friendly for researchers. ŴCROSSDA: Our advice is to approach transparency as the fundamental mechanism for building trust with your designated community and funders. Even for established infrastructures, the matrix is an excellent tool to verify that your operational reality matches your public documentation. 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