Data Archive

Data Archive and Management Policy

Information about data management (ethics, data protection, archiving)

GDPR-Compliant FormsSubject Receipt Form

GDPR-compliant means no subject could see another’s sensitive information i.e. name, address and signature.
The researcher enters a sequential number on the form for each subject, the address of the experiment rather than a home address, the signature of the experiment manager, date and amount paid to each subject. As such the subject no longer signs the form nor adds their name and address. An example form is available here (please amend as appropriate).

Subject Consent Form (Video is covered in clause 12)

Subject consent forms are covered in UCL's record retention schedule which recommends a retention period of ten years on completion of the research.
Consent forms contain personal information and should therefore be kept in locked filing cabinet. However this may take up a significant amount of space given the number of subjects any researcher may test over a 10-year period. A GDPR compliant 'fix' is to scan the consent forms and then securely store them. The original forms should then be shredded or put in UCL confidential waste bags.
Note that we (PALS) are in discussion with UCL ethics about whether consent forms might be amended to not require names and addresses, but in the meantime, storage should be GDPR compliant, as above. GDPR-compliant form template is available here (please amend as appropriate).

Participant Information Sheet Template Form is available here (please amend as appropriate). PRIVACY NOTICE FOR PARTICIPANTS IN HEALTH AND CARE RESEARCH available here.

 

DCAL is committed to ensuring that the outputs of the research centre, including research data, are managed and used in ways that will benefit further research, researchers, and the public (where possible).

The electronic archiving of research data generated by DCAL, the leading research centre on deafness and sign language in Europe, will play an important role in the creation of further scholarly content relating to d/Deafness studies internationally. DCAL will ensure that the use and reuse of research data is managed through consideration of relevant data ethics issues, and the centre will follow all requirements set out in the Data Protection Act 1998.

Making research data widely available to the research community in a timely and responsible manner ensures that these data can be verified, built upon, and used to advance knowledge and for public engagement. In order to maximise the value of research data, DCAL (as both a data generator and data user) will act with integrity and transparency in managing, using, archiving, and sharing research data.

This Data Archiving and Management Plan outlines our goals to preserve and share research datasets in a manner that maximises their long-term ethical research use and value. The plan reflects UCL best research practise guidelines (as well as best practice guidelines from the ESRC, DCAL's funder from 2006 to 2016), ensuring that research data is effectively and appropriately handled, organised, documented, and enhanced.

A guide for DCAL researchers
  1. DCAL expects all researchers to maximise the availability of research data with as few restrictions as possible. This should be considered in the planning and proposals stages of research, and appropriate advice must be sought when constructing participant research (Appendix I) and video (Appendix II) consent forms, project information sheets (Appendix III), and data management plans e.g. as part of funding proposals (see Appendix IV). This involves thinking critically about how research data can be shared, how data can be anonymised, what might limit or prohibit data sharing (data ethics and protection practises, for example), and whether any steps can be taken to remove such limitations.
  2. In cases where generated data will hold sensitive or personal information, participants and respondents must be made aware that their data will be stored securely by DCAL in line with the Data Protection Act 1998, and permissions for further research use must be sought.
  3. Where the proposed research is likely to generate data outputs that will hold significant value as a resource for the wider research community, researchers will submit a data management plan (e.g. the Data Management Plan submitted as part of the funding application or see template in Appendix IV) to the DCAL Data Archive Officer so that arrangements can be made for future archiving and storage, including information relating to how data will be prepared, labelled, organised, and submitted for archiving (see the UCL Data Retention Schedule for more information).
  4. When preparing research data for archiving, researchers will present and label their information in such a way that researchers outside of DCAL can clearly and basically understand the contents of the data sets without separate explanation; this can be made easier with additional explanatory documents such as Parts A and B of the Project Details form (see point 3.a.viii. and Appendices VI and VII below).
  5. All digitised data will be made available to the Data Archive Officer at the end of the project; this might be by changing the permissions on the server. The Data Archive Officer will then upload it to the Research Data Archive.

  6. DCAL will:

    • review data management and sharing plans, and any costs involved
    • work with researchers on an ongoing basis to support them in maximising the long-term value of key datasets resulting from their research
    • foster an environment that enables researchers to maximise the value of research data
    • ensure that key data is archived and managed responsibly (as set out in the DCAL Data Archiving and Digitisation Plan)
  7. DCAL expects all users of research data to acknowledge the sources of their data and to abide by the terms and conditions under which they accessed the original data.

DCAL has a rich collection of research data which has been collected since 2006. This document (and particularly sections 3 and 4) attempts to formalise DCAL’s approach to the digitisation and archiving of research data and aims to address the entire lifecycle of digitised content, from selection for digitisation, to the long-term curation of digitised content.

DCAL has worked with UCL Library Services to create its own ‘responsible repository’ – an online Research Data Archive: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/digital-collections/collections/dcal. With regard to the principles set out in this policy and the Data Protection Act 1998, the DCAL Research Data Archive serves to:

  1. Store all research data and content relating to DCAL projects (thus meeting research council and other funder requirements for data archiving).
  2. Curate and archive research data and content, and make it available securely online at least to DCAL PIs and if possible other DCAL researchers.
  3. Make research data and content available to researchers outside of DCAL for the sole purpose of further research, where copyright and ethics (e.g. consent) permit.

DCAL partners include UCL Library Services, and others will be considered if necessary.

a. Selection and Preparation of Content for Archiving
  1. Content is prioritised for archiving following consideration of funder requirements and deadlines. All ESRC-funded DCAL work (2006-2016) has been digitised and archived as per requirements of ESRC DCAL centre funding.
  2. Where time and resources allow, data and information from other DCAL projects are also being/ will be digitised and archived. Content is prioritised for digitisation from internal resources where there is active research being carried out within DCAL that will benefit and contribute to further research. Consultation will take place via DCAL Management Meetings and regular contact with DCAL PIs, as determined by an annual DCAL Data Holdings Survey.
  3. All data linked to research projects will be digitised. Physical data including but not limited to paper, VHS, DVDs, etc. will be digitised and uploaded to the DCAL Research Data Archive. Researchers are responsible for the digitisation of their data, but the Data Archive Officer is available to support this endeavour. Each format will have its own technical requirements.
  4. Filled-in consent forms will be digitised and stored securely on the Research Data Archive (only the PI will have access to this). Following this, the original hard copies will also be stored securely and managed by the Data Archive Officer.
  5. When creating digitisation plans, it is necessary to consider what will happen to ‘original’ data (i.e. paper, tapes, etc.) and if and how this will be stored and conserved. In these digitisation plans, DCAL will state whether a master copy of archived data will be kept, by whom, where, and how it will be (regularly) managed.
  6. All personal data (including video data showing participants’ faces) will be archived with the appropriate access restrictions and contact information relating to how access permissions can be sought.
  7. A data inventory will be conducted every 5 years at DCAL. Data that is unclaimed may be destroyed, particularly if it holds personal or other sensitive information that cannot be associated to any project.
  8. It is the responsibility of the researcher to prepare and organise their data for digitisation and archiving. The cataloguing of data and metadata must be done in such a way that researchers outside DCAL are able to clearly understand at a basic level what data is available under each project title without having to contact the centre for further clarification. See Appendices VI and VII for DCAL’s guidelines on data organisation (including plans for folder structure, labelling, associated ‘Read Me’ files, etc.); these can be used when preparing data. The Data Archive Officer will be available to support DCAL researchers with any queries relating to this.
  9. Researchers will attach metadata to their data and data sets; DCAL follows IMDI standards (see 4.v. and Appendix V) for this.
  10. The Data Archive Officer will be available to support both DCAL and outside researchers with any queries relating to the DCAL Research Data Archive (see Contact information).
The Digitisation Process
  1. The physical process of digitisation and conversion to appropriate formats should be carried out using the most cost-effective method, depending on the scale and requirements of each project. Where possible in-house facilities will be used.
  2. The choice of format will in part be influenced by recommendations from UCL Library Services and with consideration of the Research Data Archive’s storage and archiving requirements. There should be no need to digitise any item a second time for a different purpose.
  3. Following UCL Library Services guidelines, the quality of certain data (for example video data) must be maintained where possible. Any compression of data must be carried out to a high or good quality, and the potential for the degradation and bit rot of certain files and formats must be considered. Recommended formats and settings for video will be provided by the Data Archive Officer in relevant instances.
  4. Appropriate administrative metadata, including technical, rights, preservation and structural metadata will be created as part of the digitisation process and associated with the digital objects, to support both access and preservation. All such metadata will be standards-based. In general, metadata will loosely follow DCAL’s IMDI standards (see Appendix V).

The DCAL Research Data Archive (created through UCL Library Services) will preserve quality and assure digital preservation and conversion/ upgrades of research data where necessary.

 Presenting digitalised content online
  1. Digitised content online should be suitable for the widest possible range of potential uses by different groups for different purposes. Due to the ‘research’ nature of DCAL data, the use and reuse of the centre’s online materials will be limited to research use only (as outlined in the Data Protection Act 1998).
  2. Where there are ethical limitations regarding the use and reuse of certain data, appropriate access restrictions will be imposed. The DCAL Research Data Archive will attribute three levels of access to data: (1) open access and available to the public; this can be done with quantitative data (which has been anonymised) without explicit participant permission, (2) limited to researchers (who can contact the DCAL Data Archive Officer for permission to access it), (3) restricted for use only within DCAL, and (4) locked and only accessible by project PIs, e.g. where consent forms and child data are highly restricted.
  3. Anonymised research made publicly available on an open access basis will require that end users agree to use information for research only; this will be implemented through a terms and conditions acknowledgement which users must comply to.
  4. High quality summaries and descriptions of data sets will be attached to each digital collection; this will assist users in understanding the quality of the DCAL research data. Where only part of a collection has been selected for digitisation or archiving, that should be made clear to users and information provided alongside the digitised content about the rest of the collection, and about related collections.
  5. Descriptive and demographic metadata – conforming to DCAL’s IMDI standards (see Appendix V) - should be associated with each digitised item, wherever possible, or at least to subsets of different types of data. All digitised metadata will be made as visible as possible to external search engines, the UK Data Archive, other research portals, and specialist aggregators; this will serve in making DCAL data searchable and more accessible.
  6. Where technically possible and where resources permit, optical character recognition (OCR) should be used to make digitised text searchable; there are online OCR tools available which the Data Archive Officer can help researchers use. Transcripts or contextual information might be needed to make the content more useable.
  7. For researchers including digitised and electronic content in the digital collection: All digitised content online should include a clear statement of copyright, including end-user rights, and relevant terms and conditions.
  8. Regular evaluations will be carried out of DCAL’s archived content. Usage statistics, occasional user surveys, and online forms will be used to measure the amount and type of usage, and the degree of user satisfaction. That information will inform future decisions about archiving of new collections and the maintenance of existing archived collections.
  9. DCAL’s Research Data Archive will be presented online with the assistance and direction of UCL Library Services. The layout or presentation of online content will be reviewed by the Data Archive Officer annually to ensure that information is clearly viewable and accessible.

Ethics and Data Protection

DCAL is committed to using and generating research following best practise guidelines as set out by the UCL Research Ethics Committee. Please see ethics information for the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences (PALS): http://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/intranet/ethics. Note that, wherever possible, ethics approval should be sought (a) at the divisional level – i.e. from PALS and (b) for a programme of research headed by a PI rather than project by project. The UCL REC website (https://ethics.grad.ucl.ac.uk/procedures.php) is useful for further information relating to ethics and data protection. Note that data protection and ethical approval must be sought BEFORE ANY DATA COLLECTION MAY COMMENCE.

If the project has partner institutions, and ethical approval has been gained at one of the other institutions, then ethical approval does not need to be gained at UCL.

As part of the ethical approval application, UCL require an information sheet and consent form for each study – see attached information sheet and consent form templates.

In situations where those giving consent (e.g. adult participants and parents/guardians of child participants) are likely to have BSL as their preferred language, information and forms for them to read/sign must be presented in BSL, in addition to written English. The pretest/questionnaire which all adult participants must complete (within the online participation system) is in both BSL and written English. Information sheets and consent forms for individual studies must also be presented in both languages. If the study will be conducted in person, the information sheet and consent form content can be presented in BSL in person. For studies which will not be conducted in person, information sheets and consent forms must be presented in BSL (e.g. via video on the web or on DVD). Talk to your line manager for more info.

If you are storing any personal data about your participants, you need to obtain a Data Protection Registration Number by downloading and completing the UCL Research Registration Form (Form 2) which will need to be sent to data-protection@ucl.ac.uk. The UCL Data Protection team will provide you with the Data Protection registration number. You will also need to have details about your research project listed on the Divisional Data Protection Holdings or the DCAL Holdings databases. Full details about the information you must provide can be found at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/intranet/ethics/data-protection

For projects that will be recruiting all and only from the DCAL online participation system (D-List), the data protection registration for D-List (reference No Z6364106/2010/10/66, section 19, research) may be used in the ethical approval application, and no further data protection registration is needed.

Risk Assessment Guidance

Please see the UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences Risk Assessment Guidance: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/intranet/ethics/risk-assessment (password-protected for Divisional staff).

Costs

Future costing plans must be made when research data is added to the DCAL Research Data Archive. I.e. expansion of server space with UCL Library Services is £800 per 1TB (as of February 2017).

Long-term Digital Curation
  1. All digital material created, owned, or managed by DCAL, will be digitally curated (where data protection laws permit) wherever it is judged to be of sufficiently lasting value under the DCAL Research Data Archive. This will incorporate digital preservation planning to ensure long-term accessibility of the content.
  2. DCAL will not guarantee to retain all its digitally-curated content indefinitely and unreflectingly (this is also in line with the UCL Retention Schedule). Material which is judged to have outlived its use, and to have little archival value, will be discarded.
  3. Where data protection laws permit, DCAL will encourage managed approaches to the curation of digital resources by other UCL departments, and will be pleased to advise other UCL departments on the curation of their digital assets.

DCAL follows UCL Information Services' (1) Secure Disposal Guidelines and (2) Information Security Policy, which can be found at the following addresses:

  1. Secure Disposal Guidelines
    https://www.ucl.ac.uk/informationsecurity/itsecurity/knowledgebase/securitybaselines/secure_disposal_guidelines
  2. Information Security Policy
    https://www.ucl.ac.uk/informationsecurity/policy

At present neither of these documents describe Solid State Hard Drives; these cannot be wiped so need to be destroyed.

Secure shredding and disposal of electronic media can be arranged through UCL Estates who provides services for:

This Data Archiving Policy will be revised every two years by the DCAL Data Archive Officer.

Roles for the Data Archive Officer:

  • Annually review this Data Archiving Policy and update changes to information, hyperlinks, etc.
  • Annually review and amend (as necessary) the DCAL Data Holdings database (3.a.ii).
  • Annually review and amend (as necessary) the layout or presentation of online content, including the DCAL website and Research Data Archive.
  • Review the UCL Research Data Policy every three years to check for amendments or updates – particularly relevant for data re-use and distribution information.
  • Every five years review data retention policies and conduct data inventory at DCAL.