Before you deposit your digital research data in Open Research Exeter (ORE) you need to select, prepare, organise and document your data, check any legal and ethical issues and decide which level of access you will give to your data. This draft checklist should help you prepare for data deposit.JIS

Cole, Gareth

Evans, Jill

Lloyd-Jones, Hannah

Open Research Exeter

    1   Checklist for depositing data on Open Research Exeter (ORE) Before you deposit your digital research data in Open Research Exeter (ORE) you need to select, prepare, organise and document your data, check any legal and ethical issues and decide which level of access you will give to your data. This checklist should help you prepare for data deposit. 1. Select your data  a) Have you selected the data that needs to be archived? Not all the data you have collected or created will need to be archived. Research data should be appraised and selected by the PI/researcher or the PGR student in conjunction with the PGR supervisor before being archived. Use this checklist to help select the data you need to archive. 2. Alternative repositories   a) Can you deposit your data in another repository e.g. a discipline-specific repository?  If there is an appropriate alternative repository for your data e.g. UKDS for social science data, you should deposit your data in this repository. You should also record information about the data in ORE and include a link to where it is archived. A list of data repositories is available on the DataCite website. 3. Organise your data  a) Are you depositing individual or multiple datasets? b) Does your data need to be linked to another research output in ORE e.g. a research paper, PGR thesis?  Decide how best to organise your data. You may wish to archive multiple files as one item in ORE or archive them separately. If you need a permanent identifier that links only to the specific data that backs up a research paper, for example, you should archive your data separately from your research paper.   However, it may be better to have all related data accessible from a single record with a single permanent identifier. Archiving individual files to different records with different permanent identifiers can take longer than archiving a small number of related files to one record.  4. Prepare your data a) Have you checked the data for accuracy (if appropriate)? b) Have you structured and labelled your data in a consistent manner?     2  c) Is your data in an open source format which allows for reuse? d) Have you compressed your data into zip files if necessary?  Ensure that your files are structured and labelled consistently to allow others to understand your data easily. Your files should be future-proof and if possible not dependent on proprietary software formats as these may no longer be supported in the future. You may want to deposit an item in more than one format, for example a text document could be stored in Rich Text Format (.rtf), MS Word (.docx) and pdf format.  More information on file formats and preservation is available on the UKDA website.  5. Describing your data: documentation and metadata a) Have you prepared documentation files for your dataset(s)? b) Have you spelled out acronyms and explained the labels of your variables and values? c) Have you included research methodology reports and any other relevant information? d) Have you thought about the information you will include in the metadata fields of the data record?  Ensure that the documentation about your research data gives enough information to allow discovery, reuse and verification of the data by others. We recommend that you upload a “readme.txt” file including this information with your dataset.   Think in advance about which information you will include in the metadata fields that are completed during the deposit process. You should complete the fields as fully as possible so that your data is discoverable and reusable.  The information included in the dataset, supporting documentation and the metadata record should allow somebody to use and understand the data fully.  6. Legal, ethical and commercial considerations a) Do you have the intellectual property rights to make the data available on ORE? b) If the data includes secondary data or third-party copyrighted material, have you obtained permission to make these available on ORE? c) Does the dataset contain personal data or confidential information? Was explicit consent obtained to put this data on open access? If not, have you anonymised the data to allow it to be made available on OA? d) Is the data commercially exploitable or commercially sensitive?  Make sure that you have the legal rights to upload the data to ORE. You may wish to check documents such as: ethical approval form, data management plan, funder terms and conditions, studentship agreements, collaboration agreements, EU framework agreements, any other contract relating to the project, disclosure forms, patents. If the data contains personal or confidential information, make sure your have permission to share this, or anonymise the data. For further information, see the Data Protection and Ethics page. If you believe that the data is commercially exploitable, contact the Commercial Manager in RKT.     3   7. Access options Considering the above, should: a) The data be deposited on ORE as available on Open Access or b) The data be deposited on ORE and access embargoed. The metadata record of the dataset will be public or c) The data be deposited on another repository or archived elsewhere (e.g. on a NHS server) with a metadata-only record on ORE?  For further help and advice, contact the Open Access and Data Curation team or email rdm@exeter.ac.uk. 

Checklist for depositing data on Open Research Exeter (ORE)

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