Certified with the Data Seal of Approval in 2014 and the CoreTrustSeal Trusted Digital Repository award in 2018
DataFirst is a research data service dedicated to giving open access to data from African countries.
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Latest Datasets
Data for all years of the Department of Basic Education’s Early Grade Reading Study are now available from our data site. Some key findings are that teacher coaching is effective, and the language used in learning is important.
Foundational Learning Data for Impact Course
The second one-week residential course will be held at the University of Cape Town from 9 to 13 June 2025. This five-day course aims to improve your skills in data cleaning, data analysis, data interpretation and the communication of resear
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Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Opportunity
We invite applications for a postdoctoral position to work in the AFLEARN Data Hub. The successful candidate will be involved in original empirical research; collating and analysing large-scale African foundational learning data; publishing
Position available: Chief/Senior Research Officer
We are looking for a Chief Research Officer or Senior Research Officer to join us on a fixed-term contract, where you will play a key role in advancing the AFLEARN Data Hub.
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Latest Datasets
Data for all years of the Department of Basic Education’s Early Grade Reading Study are now available from our data site. Some key findings are that teacher coaching is effective, and the language used in learning is important.
Read more
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Opportunity
We invite applications for a postdoctoral position to work in the AFLEARN Data Hub. The successful candidate will be involved in original empirical research; collating and analysing large-scale African foundational learning data; publishing
Read more
Foundational Learning Data for Impact Course
The second one-week residential course will be held at the University of Cape Town from 9 to 13 June 2025. This five-day course aims to improve your skills in data cleaning, data analysis, data interpretation and the communication of resear
Read more
WORLD Policy Analysis Center Datasets
In partnership with DataFirst, the WORLD Policy Analysis Center is thrilled to announce the release of open access longitudinal quantitative measures of laws and policies for African countries that lay the foundation for equal opportunities
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Foundational Learning Data for Impact: Mastering Data Interpretation and Communication 2024
AFLEARN’s inaugural one-week residential course took place from 4 to 8 November 2024, focusing on maximising the impact of foundational learning data.
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Global recognition advances UCT's research accessibility and reliability
The University of Cape Town's, ZivaHub has been awarded the CoreTrustSeal Certification. DataFirst was a forerunner in achieving the certification, becoming the first African data repository to receive the CoreTrustSeal in 2018.
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DataFirst presents at the Make Data Count Summit in London
Lynn Woolfrey, Manager of Data Services and Operations at DataFirst, was a Speaker at the Make Data Count Summit 2024 on the 5th and 6th of September.
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Our international certification
CoreTrustSeal is a certification organisation announced by the ICSU World Data System (WDS) and the Data Seal of Approval (DSA), which have merged their data repositories certification under the umbrella of the Research Data Alliance.
Our mission
DataFirst is a research data service dedicated to giving open access to data from South Africa and other African countries. We promote high quality research by providing the essential Open Research Data infrastructure for discovering and accessing data and by developing skills among prospective users, particularly in South Africa. We undertake research on the quality and usability of national data and encourage data usage and data sharing.