The repository had its original inception and development at USask and provides researchers at USask and across Canada more than 1.7 petabytes of secure storage—the equivalent of nearly 200,000 DVDs.
The repository is physically held at Simon Fraser University, University of Waterloo, and University of Toronto, and protects the information’s integrity by holding multiple simultaneous duplicates at each location.
In addition to providing 1 terabyte of repository storage available to all faculty members at Canadian post-secondary institutions (more storage may be available upon request), the repository also brings together disparate repositories from across Canada into one accessible, searchable index.
FRDR is designed to address a long-standing gap in Canada's research infrastructure by providing researchers with a robust repository option into which large research datasets can be ingested, curated, processed for preservation, discovered, cited, and shared.
The repository will help researchers store and manage their data, preserve their research for future use, and comply with publisher, institutional, and funding agency data management requirements.
Rather than serving as simply another cloud storage service, FRDR employs a team of curators who help researchers prepare their datasets for final publication and can assign a unique digital object identifier to the data.
At USask, the development effort has been led by Jason Hlady, associate director of ICT Research and Library Technology, and involved Neha Milan, Todd Trann, Mike Winter, Adam McKenzie, and Joel Farthing.
FRDR is made possible through a collaboration between Portage Network, the Compute Canada Federation and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries.
See a list of upcoming webinars, and training videos to get started with FRDR. https://portagenetwork.ca/news/upcoming-webinars-on-the-federated-research-data-repository-frdr/