Skip to content

Custom Frontends

Custom Frontends

A custom frontend is a personalized presentation layer on top of data archived at DaSCH. Projects that develop custom frontends are responsible for development, ongoing maintenance, and hosting.

DaSCH's Focus: Long-Term Data Preservation

DaSCH specializes in:

  • Archiving data for long-term preservation
  • Providing secure storage and backup
  • Ensuring data remains searchable via DaSCH applications
  • Maintaining data interoperability and citability
  • Making metadata publicly searchable
  • Providing persistent identifiers (ARKs) that remain stable and accessible

DaSCH does not maintain:

  • Custom presentation layers or research tools
  • Specialized user interfaces with project-specific functionality

Static websites: DaSCH can archive static websites along with the data they are built upon.

DaSCH Guarantees

Data is archived long-term according to FAIR principles. DaSCH ensures:

  • Data and persistent identifiers (ARKs) remain available and searchable via DaSCH applications
  • Data is securely stored and backed up
  • Data is interoperable and citable
  • Metadata is publicly searchable

API Stability Considerations

DaSCH continuously develops software to ensure all components remain technically up-to-date. This requires ongoing development and, when necessary, reconceptualization of components. As a result, DaSCH cannot guarantee API stability over time.

Requirements for Custom Frontends

Projects building custom frontends that retrieve data archived in DSP should consider:

  • Provide a contact address for technical matters. DaSCH uses this to inform projects about breaking API changes at an early stage, providing sufficient time to adapt applications. Projects should budget long-term funding for such updates.
  • Ensure persistent identifiers (ARKs) work properly when resolved to custom frontends. If ARKs fail to function correctly, DaSCH reserves the right to suspend forwarding and resolve ARKs to the generic DSP-APP until the problem is resolved. This is necessary because DaSCH, as a FAIR repository, is obliged to ensure persistent identifiers function correctly.