Digital archiving at FSD promoted by University of Tampere
The University of Tampere published its data policy last autumn, approved by Rector’s decision on 27 October 2016. Now it is also available in English.
Researchers are encouraged to deposit digital research data produced at the University for long-term preservation primarily with the Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD). Data unsuited for preservation at the FSD should be deposited with a reliable national archive of the field or a suitable international data service. Scientific publications are saved in TamPub, the open institutional repository of the University of Tampere.
The task of FSD set out in the data policy is to support making research data openly available.
In practice, this entails ensuring long-term access to the archived data and distributing data descriptions to several national and international databases.
"For FSD staff, the fact that FSD is advocated as the primary service for long-term preservation of research data is a welcome aid in our efforts to acquire data produced at our own University and enable their reuse" states Helena Laaksonen, the director of FSD.
The significance of data management plans is also stressed. Researchers should create a plan that includes, among others, a general description of the data as well as details on data collection methods to be used, data storage during the study, anonymisation of the data, long-term preservation or destruction of the data, and intentions to open the data for reuse.
The FSD’s Data Management Guidelines are mentioned as a source of instructions on good data management and anonymisation.
For more information, please consult University of Tampere Publication and Data Policy, the open access web page and the Guide for managing research data.