About RODA

History

The Romanian Social Data Archive was established in 2001 as a nationwide development of the database department of the Research Institute for Quality of Life, in collaboration with the Department of Sociology at the University of Bucharest.

RODA currently has its own legal personality as a nonprofit association, organized as an institutional consortium with open participation.

The archive was created to support and promote quantitative research based on secondary and comparative analysis. It maintains a collection of electronic datasets together with their accompanying documentation, coordinates the acquisition of new data from a variety of sources, and provides direct access to publicly available data.

The initiative to establish the archive began in 1996 with a CNCSIS grant initiated by Professor Cătălin Zamfir and Associate Professor Poliana Ștefănescu. The project continued with a World Bank seed grant led by Professor Ioan Mărginean, as well as a CNCSIS grant coordinated by Lecturer Lucian Pop. Since 2002, the project has been coordinated by Professor Adrian Dușa, with its development supported by INFOSOC funding and several European-funded grants under FP6, FP7, and Horizon 2020.

We would like to thank our colleagues at ICCV who, over the years, contributed to the development of the archive and the preparation of its datasets: Manuela Stănculescu, Iuliana Precupețu, Narcisa Țambrea, Ana Maria Preoteasa, Mălina Voicu, Bogdan Voicu.

An infrastructure for social data

RODA supports research by preserving social data and their documentation over the long term, protecting them against the risk of loss or deterioration.

The data in RODA’s main catalogue are drawn primarily from ICCV datasets, although the archive also contains data from other research institutions. The aim is to collect as many datasets as possible from research institutions throughout Romania.

Open participation allows organizations that produce, document, or use social data to contribute to the development of the archive without RODA being defined by an exclusive institutional affiliation.

• Preservation
  We retain original files and verifiable preservation copies.
  
• Documentation
  We describe studies, variables, methods and access conditions.
  
• Access
  We support discovery, exploration and access proportionate to data sensitivity.