Data Deposit
The Current Research Landscape
Increasingly, funding agencies and journals are requiring researchers to share the data that supports their findings. Depending on the context, a researcher may make available all digital research data, metadata, and codebooks.
This does NOT mean that ALL data should be shared openly.
“Grant recipients are not required to share their data. However, the agencies expect researchers to provide appropriate access to the data where ethical, cultural, legal, and commercial requirements allow…”
-Government of Canada. (2021). Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy.
It is very important to identify when data can be shared appropriately and when it is essential to restrict access. There are many instances when you may determine that access to your data should be restricted.
- You may be in possession of sensitive data (e.g. it contains personal identifiers).
- There may be commercial constraints (e.g. it is proprietary data and/or you have signed an NDA).
- You did not receive consent from project participants to share the data.
- Your research is embargoed for a period of time.
- You and your partner did not set up a Data Sharing Agreement.
Share whenever possible. Restrict when necessary.
CRI staff can provide guidance in this area. We can assist with the data curation process, for instance.
Repository Options
There are templates which enable you to use standardized metadata and provide rich descriptions of your datasets which will make it easier for other researchers to find your research online.
Fanshawe College has two institutional repository options available to you:
- FIRST – This is used to showcase the academic output of employees and students. It is an open repository, meaning that anyone (including members of the public) can search FIRST and read journal pre-prints, employee dissertations, student capstone projects, and so on.
- BOREALIS – This is intended to host datasets (research data, metadata, codebooks) specifically. This institutional data repository has additional benefits:
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- Researchers can set permission levels. For instance, you make certain data sets open but restrict access to specific files (e.g. sensitive data).
- There are templates which enable you to create rich descriptions and use standard metadata standards to help others find your research online.
- It is hosted on Canadian servers and is a stable and secure environment for long-term preservation.
Resource Borealis Quick Guide
Further Learning: Data Deposit from a College Perspective
If you would like to do a deeper dive into this topic, there is a module called Data Deposit from a College Perspective in Fanshawelearns.
This and other modules can be accessed from the CRI Research Playlist in Fanshawelearns.
Research data encompasses the findings of a research project.
a description of the data. When depositing to a repository, this will likely include the title, keywords, and perhaps a statement of how the data may be used and re-used.
To ensure your data is interpreted correctly, it is important to include a codebook or README file with your data
Data curation may involve organizing and cleaning data to make it more accessible.
