Information for users

bwDataArchive is a service for long term storage of research data of at least 10 years. The service is open to members of universities in Baden-Württemberg as well as members of the Helmholtz association, provided the institution has signed a service contract with KIT. Please inquire at your local IT-support if you are entitled to use the bwDataArchive service and which additional rules have been negotiated for your institution.

The rules and regulations of the KIT I&C regulation, the bwDataArchive terms of use as well as any additonal regulations stipulated in your home organizations service contract apply. The user agrees to these regulations upon completion of the registration.

User account

During the registration an independent user account for the service is created. The account usually stays activ even after the deactivation of the account of the home organization which is used to create the bwDataArchive account. Please note that additional rules and restrictions may apply specifically for your home organization.

During registration you are assigned a three character long alphanumeric username, which you can repeatedly reject. A new suggestion for the username will then be generated for you. You have to set an account password, which you can change at any time using our user account management homepage. Should you have lost your password to your bwDataArchive account, but still have access to your home organization account, you can log into the homepage using the home organization account to reset your password. If you have already left your home organization and need to reset your password, please contact the bwDataArchive support.

During the registration process you are asked to fill out a registration form, however, pre-filled entries cannot be changed. Please fill out the form as complete as possible. The editable fields of the registration form can be changed later at any time via the user account management page. In particular, please provide an alternate e-mail address which we can use to contact you even after you leave your home organization. Keep this information up to date, so we can contact you at any time during the lifetime of your stored data.

Once you have successfully completed the registration process we check internally if your registration is complete and the neccesary authorization to use the service has been provided. Your personal storage space is only created once this check has been completed. The process usually takes about 15 minutes for members of KIT, members of other organizations should allow a processing time of up to two working days.

Data storage

bwDataArchive is a long term storage for seldomly used data. The service is not an online storage and therefore not suitable for use with frequently changing data. bwDataArchive stores the data on magnetic tape, which results in differences in usage compared to disk storage space. Therefore, please pay attention to our guidelines on data storage.

Data transfer to/from bwDataArchive is only possible using SFTP. Also, the user home folder in bwDataArchive is not writable for the user due to technical restrictions. The home folder contains a folder private, where you can store your data. Data stored in bwDataArchive is kept for at least 10 years. With this, the service enables a qualified implementation of the recommendation of the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the security and storage of research data.