Research Data Management

The University of Lapland has an open science policy concerning also datasets:

In principle the datasets produced in our university, funded by public funds and used for published research output should be opened if it isn't prevented by contracts, ethical reasons or the interests of the university or the research subjects.

By publishing/sharing datasets or descriptions of datasets, researchers will benefit from:

• Expansion to the scale and impact of research: Research data can be cited by other researchers which can amplify your research impact.
• Increased collaboration and reduced duplication: Your research datasets become more discoverable thus making other researchers aware of your research.
• Research integrity: The validity of research results can be substantiated.
• Future applications: Research data preservation allows for the application of developing analytical technologies within a field of research.

Not all data can be shared due to legal, ethical, or practical reasons.  Restrictions due to privacy, confidentiality, security or intellectual property can be valid reasons for restricting data.  If this is the case this must be explicitly addressed in the data management plan.

Persistent identifiers identify online resources (such as datasets) by providing a permanent link to them. Even if the data changes location on the Internet, the identifier remains the same and will still link to the data, regardless of the new location. Thee common types of persistent identifiers are DOI (Digital Object Identifier), URN and Handle e.g.:

• doi:10.1007/s00300-017-2139-7
• URN:NBN:fi:ula-201709081296
• hdl:10138/201585

When archiving data to a repository, the repository will provide unique identifiers.

You can usually create a permanent address by using the PID's. The  addresses to the above PID's would be:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00300-017-2139-7
• http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:ula-201709081296
• http://hdl.handle.net/10138/201585

Choosing an archive for your data

Order of priority when choosing a research data repository:

1. A repository complying with the standards of your own discipline
2. A repository of your own research organization
3. A generic scientific repository, e.g. Zenodo
4. Some other repository

Archives for research data

The IDA contact persons at the University of Lapland:

• Liisa Hallikainen, phone 040 758 2590, liisa.hallikainen [at] ulapland.fi
• Arto Vitikka, phone 040 527 2436, arto.vitikka [at] ulapland.fi

Tools for finding existing datasets

Data citation

Research data requires citations for the same reasons journal articles and other types of publications require citations. Purpose of citing data is to acknowledge the original producer of the data and to help other researchers find the resource. The minimum information of a data citation:

• Persistent identifier (PID)
• Author – the creator of the dataset;  an individual, a group of individuals, or an organization.
• Publication year – the date the dataset was made available
• Title –  the name of the dataset, and the titles of the top collection and main parent sub-collection (if any) of which the dataset is a part
• Publisher – the organization hosting the data