AUSSDA is part of the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA ERIC) and closely cooperates with associated archives across Europe. To map out data sets, we draw on so-called “controlled vocabularies”. This uniform application of joint, multilingual vocabularies guarantees the traceability of multilingual data archived at AUSSDA. The CESSDA Metadata Office has set up an overview of all resources applied, the CESSDA Vocabulary Service can be found here.

The CESSDA Metadata Office also hosts the ELSST (The European Language Social Science Thesaurus). All those who have already archived data at AUSSDA will be familiar with ELSST. We use the Thesaurus to assign keywords to data sets. Presently, it is possible to index in 13 languages – including German. With its German partner archive, GESIS, AUSSDA is working on the German version of ELSST. We also make sure that Austrian German is included in the ELSST and, for instance, integrate words such as “Pension” (retirement) and “Lehre” (apprenticeship) that are rarely used in Standard High German. Dutch will be the next language available.

The CESSDA Metadata Office will continue to further develop its services – The agenda will not only include controlled vocabularies, but also surveys, newsletters and workshops.