# Data Sources

Data Sources are online locations of Items.   Individuals (your users) connect Data Sources and provide MeasureOne with their credentials and consent so that MeasureOne may retrieve Items (their data) from the Data Source to be subsequently shared with you in a strictly permissioned way.    

Data Sources may be universities, financial institutions, payroll systems, government records.    MeasureOne curates the list of Data Sources to ensure the provenance of the retrieved documents.   Since not all Data Sources may be relevant to your application, the API allows you to configure and select the list of Data Sources that are displayed to your user.