ICPSR Deaccession Policy

ICPSR permanently archives deposited files. On an ongoing basis, ICPSR evaluates its data holdings with regard to maintaining access and reserves the right to discontinue the distribution of a data collection when deemed appropriate. Evaluation criteria used when reviewing deaccession requests include:

• How often are the data used?
• What is the potential research value?
• Are there duplicate copies in a repository elsewhere?
• Are there significant errors in the data or documentation that cannot be corrected?
• Are there disclosure issues that cannot be resolved?
• Are there proprietary or custodial claims to the data that cannot be resolved?

When materials are deaccessioned, the data are no longer publicly accessible at ICPSR, although they are still preserved in ICPSR's archival storage. Because digital files are assigned a persistent digital object identifier (DOI), the study description is still available to view, but is not searchable through the ICPSR search index. Web crawlers are instructed to ignore the descriptions (via the robots exclusion protocol).

For more information about ICPSR's Deaccession Policy, please contact ICPSR User Support: icpsr-help@umich.edu.